I have totally been slacking lately. I’ve been finding it hard to write, except for small stretches here and there. I thought, oh, I can take a couple days off, I’m finished with this draft, no problem. Well…I looked up from the fog of apathy to find out it’s been weeks. *sigh* Anyways, I pulled out my sewing machine and surprisingly enough, doing something creative in another format is slowly wakening me up. I thought it appropriate that it all happened on a Wednesday. Took me all morning, but I managed to get some words down. One look at the image for today and it came flooding back. Whether or not that means I’ll be better about posting, that has yet to be seen. So…moving right along. 

Today’s #writingpromptwednesday is inspired by this image from photographer Quang Nguyen Vinh:

What scene does the image bring up for you?

For me, the concept came to me of a woman trying to figure out how to get to the temple on the other side of that lake.  This picture sort of grabbed me because of how hazy the building in the back is. The haziness is perfectly encapsulating how I feel right now. The story shifted on me a few times actually. It went from a woman waiting in a passive way, to a woman waiting on her one chance. I don’t know if that makes sense to y’all, but it was a difference to me. I don’t necessarily know what’s happening in Bria’s world, but it all feels dire, or at least felt that way for a few moments. 

Anyway, as always, this little snippet is off the cuff and not necessarily edited for anything other than spelling. 

Fog surrounded her, the moist air clinging to her skin and
slowly dampening the thin robe she wore. It didn’t faze her or move her from
her post. The gateway opened only once a century and she would not miss it.
Many women in her family had stood in this exact spot, years, centuries before
her, waiting on their chance. Bria was determined to be the last. She fingered
the dagger on her belt and rolled her neck. From every story passed down to
her, this opening gateway was the only way into the temple floating hazy on
the horizon. A solitary entrance point, a single solitary moment in time to
rush through its gates and demand the end to her family line. Bria cocked her
head as a sound intruded. Her eyes never strayed from her prize, but her body
tensed as her other senses reached out to find the source. She inhaled slowly,
pulling in the damp air and a smell she would recognize for as long as she
lived…and according to family legend, that would be centuries yet.

“You’ll not sway me from my course, Caden.” Her soft voice
carried on the dawning morning.

He stepped from the fog, an apparition that could disappear
at a moment’s notice. His black jeans clung to his muscular thighs, a leather motorcycle
jacket opened to reveal the tight black t-shirt underneath. Caden had his
dreads pulled up in bun atop his head leaving nothing to detract from the face
God himself had chiseled. He watched her, his gray eyes stark against the dark
brown of his skin.

Bri shivered as those eyes traced her body, the possessive look
one she knew all too well. His full lips turned up into a smile, his teeth
straight and white except the two canines, sharp and growing longer as he
stared at her. She scoffed and turned back to her watch, but her body warmed
all the same. He knew what he was doing, the memories the sight of his teeth would
provoke. She could almost feel the phantom rake of them down her back. Her body
arched, and tingles traveled the length of her skin.

Damn him.

“Maybe I just came to keep you company while you wait.” His
voice was molasses sliding against her skin, warm and sticky.

Another trick of his.

She swallowed a sigh. “Go away, Caden.”

“Have you thought this through, Bria?” He made no moves to
close the distance between them.

“What is there to think about? If I can be the last vampire
born into the Cauly clan, then how can that be anything but good?”

“At the risk of losing your life?” He hissed.

“To save millions of others?” She gave him an incredulous
look, “fucking right.”

Caden growled and stomped closer. “I won’t let you do this.”

“Unless you plan on killing me, there is no way for you to
stop me.”

“Bria.”

“Caden,” she mocked.

“Ending the line—”

“Means that there won’t be another like my father and his
brothers. It means the one they prophesied will never exist. How do you have a
problem with that?”

“You don’t know the consequences.” Caden gripped her
shoulder and turned her to him. “We can defeat your father without you sacrificing
your life, love.”

“Don’t do this. Don’t make this harder than it is, Caden.
You promised.” She whispered, avoiding his eyes.

Caden nuzzled into her neck, his warm breath sending
goosebumps down her arms. He scraped his teeth against her skin. Bria shuddered,
her body coming alive under his touch.

“There has to be another way.” He murmured.

Bria stepped back and hugged her arms around herself. Not
that it did anything to still the heat igniting in her body. She cursed the thin
temple garb she wore.

“In the centuries we have searched, this is the only way we’ve
found. The Celestials are the only way to end this.”

“They’ll dead your whole line.” His voice was tight with
anger.

She shrugged. What could she say to that? Her only
alternative was to allow her father to overrun the rest of the world, leaving
swaths of death and destruction behind him. Nothing, in the centuries since he’d
come into power had been able to stop Jeremiah and Bria was weary of fighting.
Hell, every woman in her family was tired.

“They created us, only they can end him.” She whispered.

“We always fight together, why should this be any different?”
He cupped her chin.

“Only a direct descendant is allowed through the gateway,
you know that.”

“According to records so old they’re nearly indecipherable.
Who’s to say it can only be you, or that it would even work?” He growled and
turned his back to her.

“I won’t risk you.” She snapped.

She scrubbed at her shorn hair in frustration. She’d left
their house before dawn to avoid rehashing their argument and yet here he was.

Light shimmered between the naked branches of the tree she
stood under. Bria whipped her attention back to the lake, gasping as the temple
beyond became clearer, the haze surrounding it lifting. Her throat closed with
unshed tears. She was here, the gate was actually opening. She would be the one
to take down her father and save the world…at least from this. Humans would
have to figure out the next apocalyptic event on their own.

“Bria, please.” Caden begged.

The surface of the lake rippled, solidifying and darkening
as a bridge rose from the bubbling water. Bria pulled the staff from her back,
pushing a button in the middle. The metallic ring of the blades sliding out
rang out and she smiled. She would be the last.

Caden stepped next to her, pulling a sword from his back.

“What are you doing?” Bria’s gaze barely flickered to him.
She would not lose sight of the gateway.

He turned, facing the dead forest behind her. “Having your
back.”

“Fuck.” Her breath left her mouth in an angry puff as the
air around them slowly dropped in temperature.

She was dumb to think her father wouldn’t send someone to
stop her. The air shimmered around them battling with the magic from her father’s
minions, crystallizing the fog surrounding them. Droplets of ice formed around
the gateway slowly opening, falling in brittle pieces at her bare feet. She
glanced back and saw shadows slithering through the trees. Her conscious pricked
at her, her mind spinning. Caden was a formidable warrior, but to go alone
against her father’s horde?

“Go, Bri.”

Duty and honor warred within her as she waited on the
gateway to finish opening. “You shouldn’t have come, Caden.”

A whooshing sound preceded the horde’s attacks. A rain of
arrows thudded into the ground around them. Bria threw up a shield, cursing as
one came through, slicing across her shoulder. Wind whipped around them as the
gateway finally opened, and the bridge to the temple settled into place.

“This is the only chance you’ll have Bria,” Caden shouted
over the noise.

Their eyes met, and decades of history, words never spoken
danced between them. She glanced at the bridge, one that only her family could
travel as they were direct descendants of the Celestial. The horde would never
make it past the entrance to the gateway, the taint on their soul would bar
them from the gods, their deaths instant and most important…permanent.

Would her love for Caden shield him from that same fate? The
horde struck again, their magic beating against the shield Bria had built
around them. There was a possibility that Caden would die if she took him with
her, but if she left him, death was certain. Her father had sent out the big
guns to stop her.

Did she trust herself to keep him safe?

Bria looked out into the amassing horde, and then back at
the gate. What choice did she have?

She held out her hand.