Blind Speed Dating #23

Title: SIGHT

Genre: YA Fantasy

Word count: 65,000

Query:

Kolina had been looking forward to her seventeenth birthday. When it passes, part of her wishes it hadn’t come at all. With her new-found magic ability called the Sight, Kolina learns that she is the key to fulfilling a prophecy that could save three kingdoms – if she chooses wisely.

If she doesn’t, the usurper of a king and his advisor, who will stop at nothing to stop her, will continue their reign of cruelty. As she begins, and learns more about her task, Kolina and her companions begin to believe that the king can’t possibly be acting on his own. There must be something darker at work; but what – or who?

First 250:

The barn smelled of hay and mud as Kolina entered. She blinked a few times to get them used to the darkness after being in the morning sunshine. The dark wood of the walls was aged and looked frail, as though it would collapse at the wrong move.

Or perhaps the right move, Kolina thought cynically.

She side-stepped a puddle from the night’s storm, went to the pig pen and threw in yesterday’s dinner scraps before settling down next to the first of three large brown cows to milk. Her long brown hair was tied at the base of her neck by a brown ribbon to match her dress. Her forearms clenched with each pull on the cow’s udders. She hummed a tune to the beat of the milk splattering in her pail below. When she’d finished with the first cow, Kolina heaved a sigh and moved to the second; then the third.

With the milk pail resting in the crook of her left arm, she held in her left hand a basket with cloth lining the bottom and went next to the chicken boxes lining the opposite wall. One by one she reached her right hand underneath each hen to gather eggs, placing them carefully in the basket.

“Koli?” she jumped a little hearing her brother Dax shout as he approached the barn.

“I’m in here, nearly done,” she shouted.

Dax poked his head in through the large double doors and said, “Oh good. One of the kitchen workers is ill, so they need you back there quickly.”

Kolina sighed and rolled her eyes a little. “Thank you Dax, I’ll be right along,” she said.