Teaser Tuesday – Week 69

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

•Grab your current read

•Open to a random page

•Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page. BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)

•Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

This week’s teaser comes from “Stormdancer”  by Jay Kristoff:

“Nothing escapes my spies, great Lord. Our web is spun across the entire Shogunate.” The old man moved his arm in a broad arc. “Fox, Dragon, Phoenix, or Tiger, there is no clan and no secret that -”

“You did not think to report it to me?”

Hideo’s arm fell to his side, the faintest shadow of a frown creasing his brow. “Forgive me, my Lord.  I had no desire to to trouble you with the superstitious babbling of peasant folk. If I roused you every time the taverns or brothels crawled with some fancy about flying tigers or giant sea serpents or other youkai -”

“Tell me what you know.”

A long silence fell, punctuated by the calls of of choking sparrows. Hideo heard the soft footfalls of a servant roaming distant hallways, ringing ten notes upon an iron bell and announcing in a clear, high voice that the Hour of the Crane  had begun.

“A fantasy, great Lord.” Hideo finally shrugged. “A crew of cloudwalkers arrived in port three days ago, saving that monsoon winds drove their sky-ship off course beyond the cursed Iishi Mountains. While praying that their inflatable would not be burned to a cinder by the Thunder God Raijin, several of the men claimed to have the silhouette of an arashitora among the clouds.”

“An arashitora”, Yoritomo repeated, “A thunder tiger, Hideo. Just imagine it.”

 

What are you reading this Tuesday?