Meredith Mansfield, Author

So, I continue to work on BECOME: TO RIDE THE STORM.

Rather than just keep updating my progress, I’m going to share the introductions of the various POV characters. Not necessarily in the order of their introduction in the narrative.

Here’s Kaleran, eldest son of the main character, last seen at the end of BECOME: TO CATCH THE LIGHTNING at the age of five when his father died (at least as far as anyone knows). He’s now twenty-three. (Yes, there’s an eighteen-year gap between books 1 and 2.)

The sanctuary garden was blessedly empty at this hour. Taking one more look around, just to be sure, he knelt before the Goddess’s statue. Mumbling one hurried devotion, he felt around the base for the little hollow, hidden by a miniature rose bush, and retrieved his treasure.

He was fairly sure, by now, that the priestesses knew about it and left it there, because it was important to him. But he never spoke of it, and neither did they. He . . . didn’t really want to talk about it. It was silly for a grown man to place so much importance in a child’s toy, but he couldn’t help it.

With the wooden sphere in his hand, he said a more sincere devotion and retreated to the bench, rolling the ball in his hand. The paint was fading, after all this time. In places it had peeled off entirely. Once, it had been bright red with blue and yellow stripes, the beautiful favorite toy of a five-year old boy. It was all he had left of that happy life before . . . before everything had come crashing down. The only thing that helped him remember when he had been truly loved—not cared for out of duty by a man too busy to spare him so much as an hour. Though, in truth, Uncle Benar had little more time for his own sons. Or, later . . . whatever you could call Uncle Cordan’s tutelage, it surely wasn’t love.

Kaleran wasn’t just sure what it was, actually. When he’d been sent to the tower at ten years old, Uncle Benar had said that he was to be trained and prepared to be High Priest for his father, someday. But if that was Uncle Cordan’s purpose, he had a very odd way of going about it. The only training Kaleran received was when he was allowed to go back across to the Palace and join the other young men for a tiny portion of their training. At least, the only training Uncle Cordan knew about. There were a couple of Temple Guards, here, who gave him personal training in the warrior’s circle—the training he was forbidden to get at the Palace. Of course, Uncle Cordan’s demands had forced him to miss even that outlet today.

If he was meant to be High Priest someday, shouldn’t he be learning about the running of the New Temple and the equinox festivals and . . . and theology, or something?