Arcana's Bathing Room Scene
Or...this will make it all clear

The recent contest held in conjunction with Author Island was for a Spa Package from Arcana's Bathing Rooms. Now, if you haven't already read the fantasy novel from Sandy Lender, Choices Meant for Gods, you would have no idea what Arcana's bathing rooms are. So let me explain.

Arcana is the estate owned by the Taiman family in the novel. Within the palatial home, which is built into the side of a mountain, lies a warm and inviting chamber with a large, dimly lit wading pool. That chamber is one of a set of rooms that constitutes the bathing rooms of Arcana. Here is a scene that takes place while our heroine, Amanda Chariss, is still recovering from a near-death experience. She's been convalescing at the estate, and the lady of the house has told a sad story after a couple long weeks of worry and laying around. It's a slow scene...setting up what's to come in the next chapter.

Chariss had more questions for Mia, but Hrazon was eager to end the conversation. She wanted to hear about the gods who got bored with immortality. She wanted to ask why Mia still found intrigue enough in life to prolong it. She wanted to know how Katherine Fair had taken her life and how the gods knew she was truly dead. Hrazon just wanted to get his ward away from the depressing subject.

When Chariss left Hrazon and Mia, she made her way to the bathing rooms, pleased to find that she had them to herself. She wished to think on the story and Mia's explanation alone.

The bathing rooms at Arcana were advanced, which was no surprise. Water was pumped into them and heated by passing through troughs that were set over a series of fires along the far wall. The water was frigid when it entered the fortress from the spring deep inside the mountain, but it was hot by the time it passed over the fires. Once it traveled across the room and poured into the pond-sized pool, it had cooled enough that she could stand to put her body into it.

A full bath would be like stepping into Paradise after nearly two weeks of sponge baths in Aunt Khana's room. Chariss slipped off the dress she had borrowed from Kora and her undergarments to reveal a muscular body to the water. Despite her time lying around in bed, she hadn't lost the tone she'd developed over a lifetime of working and training. She slid her hips down into the water, lowering herself luxuriously until her hair floated on the top of the water and her chin touched the surface's heat. As she scrubbed her skin with a rough sponge and fragrant soaps, she tried not to think of the story Kora had told.

Perhaps I'm just too romantic for my own good, she thought, but the idea of having someone who loved her completely (not as Hrazon did, but as a husband loves his wife) appealed to her. Other women her age were getting married, being proposed to, or at least being courted by some handsome gentleman with prospects for a healthy future. Considering her propensity for running away when a certain sorcerer knocked on the front door with his army in tow, she didn't think a romantic future was in the cards for her.

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If scenes about Chariss intrigue you, you can read more of them on this blog, during the Author Island chats or at my publisher's site at http://www.archebooks.com/. The electronic version of Choices Meant for Gods is available now, as well as the hardback version, at the publisher's site at http://www.archebooks.com/BookIDX/Indexes/Fantasy/CMG/CMGDesc.htm. The hardback version is also available at http://www.amazon.com/ with free super saver shipping.

We'll have another Spa Package contest soon. Stay tuned for details.

"Some days, I just want the dragon to win."
Tags: Choices Meant for Gods, Arcana, fantasy novel