Excerpt of Ring of Desire by Ryshia Kennie

"Southern England 1072

I will not die.

Vala turned her head blindly toward the shore. She spat a stream of water
and choked as the chair lurched and her neck snapped forward. Her head spun
as she twisted in circles over the water. Her wrists ached and burned as
the wet rope cut into them.

“Again!” the priest commanded.

The rope played through the smith’s reluctant hands. The chair began to
lower.

“Nay,” she whispered and grimaced at the pain in her throat that was raw
from swallowing water and the silent screams of those she defended.

Her bare toes touched the unusual chill that sheeted the river. Water
closed over her head. The water wrapped around her like a cold, silken
blanket. Her nostrils quivered and her throat ached from holding her
breath.

How much longer?

Vala wrapped her fingers around the rough rope. The elements she could
touch, rope, water, chair, were fast becoming her only reality - her only
link to the physical world. When she thought she could take no more, the
chair began to move upward. Her lungs ached and rivets of pain clawed her
chest. She thought she would die if she did not get air. She gasped as her
head broke the surface.

“Ye will obey.” The priest’s words were spewed in sharp hate edged pellets.

“Let her go.” A woman’s voice broke the silence.

“Aye,” another agreed.

“She’s had enough.” This time the women seemed to speak as one.

Vala’s teeth chattered as the chill spring wind wrapped around her wet body.
She thought of Rosaline, with her stillborn son at her side, alone and dying
because of a Norman. She sucked in a breath as heat flooded her body. With
a gasp she twisted the chair so that she faced the shore.

You are the chosen. It is not time. The voices of the Ancients rippled
deep within her soul. Everything is, as it was foretold.

“Cease!” a man roared.

“Tis I who give orders!” Alfred, who had presented himself as a priest not
so many months ago, puffed his flabby chest, adjusted the rope around his
waist and glared out at Vala.

“I will not,” she persisted through the chafe and rawness of her throat.
“It will kill her.”

“Stubborn wench. Again!” the priest demanded.

The priest swung a hand in the direction of the smith whose expression was
agonized as he clutched the rope that controlled the chair.

“It will be done.” Alfred motioned again for the rope to be lowered.

Vala pulled in a deep mouthful of air. She waited. Nothing. Cynn, the
blacksmith, hadn’t moved. He clutched the rope that still held the chair
clear of the water.

“Nay.” The sound broke almost before it escaped Vala’s lips.

“Nay? How dare you, wench. Ye will not refuse me. Ye will admit your
wrong and right it.”

“No wrong.” Vala could barely get the words out and against everything that
Magna had taught her she threw her aura in the priest’s path. To the
Ancients, an aura was a powerful thing. It could take down a man. But it
was a weak effort and only the gold cross on his thick chest glinted sparks
in the dull mist.

Destiny, girl, you do not have the power to change.

Hope swelled through her at the sound of Magna’s voice. Magna, she had
always been here a part of Hafne even in the time before Vala could
remember.

You can give it to me, she threw the thought out.

But Magna was silent and in the silence Vala knew. There would be no magic
that would rescue her this day.

“No wrong!” Alfred almost screeched the words. “You are a woman, unclean
from birth. You are nothing. Men have the power and you would be wise to
remember that.” His voice became softer. “Even here.”

Feminine gasps followed this statement, for it was not the way of Hafne.

“Dunk her, dunk her!” The priest screamed.

Words of a chant that no priest would ever utter confirmed everything that
Vala already knew. Alfred was no real priest. He was one of the Others.
"