If you've read Secret of Omordion, I am sharing an excerpt I omitted from the final edit.
Hamilda and Jogesh's love story.
One summer, when Hamilda was eighteen, a chance meeting changed her life’s course forever. Hundreds of soldiers from the Western Army were passing through Hortu, a village on the outskirts of Sheidem City, on their way to their army base. They decided to rest there for three days before they continued on. Hamilda was one of many, assigned to make sure the soldiers were comfortable during their stay. She was asked to help out at Hortu’s only eatery, a very small, quaint restaurant, which became overcrowded with expressive soldiers almost immediately. She stayed for most of the day, helping the chefs bring out dishes of food to the soldiers, but by the end of the day, all Hamilda wanted to do was go home and rest at Bontihm’s, her adoptive father, compound.
When one of her neighbors came in for the rest of the afternoon, Hamilda asked to leave but the head cook told her to take one more order before she left. Reluctantly, she approached the table at the far right corner of the restaurant, where three soldiers were seated, laughing hysterically. She took a quick moment to study them. One was a round man with red hair, whose stomach shook while he laughed, slapping the table with his palm. Another one, seated to his right, was a medium built, muscular man, with dirty blonde hair and a scar running alongside his ear. The third man had brown hair and broad shoulders, but she could not see how he looked like because his back was facing her.
“My name is Hamilda,” Hamilda said when she approached their table. “Welcome to Hortu. May I help you with something today?”
“Well, it’s about time,” the man with the blonde hair said, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. “I would like...” he began but Hamilda did not hear the rest of what he said because, just then, the third man looked up at her.
What? Hamilda thought. She couldn’t understand what was happening. Her knees almost buckled underneath her and it took every ounce of her energy to stay standing. She felt a wave of temporary confusion, a mixture of happiness with a tinge of sadness, when she looked into his eyes. He had a bit of familiarity to him, as if she’d met him before, but she knew she had not. The way he looked at her. It was nothing she had seen before. But who is he to her? He’s just a stranger. No one she had seen before.
Clearing her throat, Hamilda tried hard to refocus her energy on what the blonde man was saying. “I–I am so sorry,” she said. “Can you repeat that?”
“Of course, dear,” the blonde man said. “I’m sure you’ve had a long day.”
Hamilda smiled and felt the blood rushing to her face. The brown haired man was still staring at her but did not say a word. He feels it too, she thought. Strange.
***
When Captain Jogesh Shing looked up at Hamilda, her features startled him. She had black, curly hair that was pulled back from her tanned, oval face and she looked back at him with extraordinarily bright, green eyes. He felt some sort of connection–if something like that truly exists–to her, as if her energy was pulling him towards her at the speed of light. His heart beat hard in his chest. Could this be love at first sight. The thought of it made him want to laugh–but he couldn’t. He was so bewildered that he could only stare at her.
She’s so beautiful, he thought. What an extraordinary woman. And I don’t even know her. He could feel his comrades staring at him staring at her but he didn’t care. This feeling he had. It was strange. Nothing he had ever experienced in all his twenty-one years of life.
***
In a small voice, Hamilda slowly asked the brown haired man if she could help him. What was it that drew her to him? He was a good looking man, with brown, wavy hair and brown eyes, full lips and a strong jaw, and looked to be in his early twenties. She had met many men passing through who were handsome but something about him attracted her to him as if he were some sort of human magnet.
This could not be good.
The blonde man reached across the table and hit the brown haired man on the arm. “Say something Jogesh! What is wrong with you?” Jogesh quickly made his order, visibly blushing from ear to ear.
Jogesh. Had a nice ring to it.
Hamilda wrote down everything he said and unwillingly left the table. That was weird, she thought as she made her way back to the kitchen. She contemplated waiting around to talk to him but decided otherwise. Because of her background, because of who she was, there was no use in flirting with disaster. She was tired and she figured it would be just a waste of her time if she stayed, so she asked the other waitress to give the three soldiers their food and quietly made her way home.
***
“She’s not coming back, man.”
Jogesh turned around to face his two comrades and sighed. “I figured that much.”
His friend, Captain Foglir, with the red hair, shook his head and laughed. “I think we scared her away. Or you. I think you scared her away.”
Captain Agen, with the blonde hair, punched Foglir on the arm. “I think you should go find her. Hortu is very small. If she lives here, it won’t be hard to figure out where she is.”
“But where do I begin?” Jogesh asked.
“Ask the people who are helping out here. Someone, if not all of them, most know where she is.”
“Right.”
After the men were done eating, Jogesh went to the kitchen to find someone who knew of Hamilda’s whereabouts. He was determined to find her. It was very strange for him to chase after a girl that he just met and did not even know, but he still felt a strange pull towards her. He did not want to think about any ‘what ifs’ later on and regret not finding out anything about her. He asked around and, finally, an older man, with frizzy hair, told him about Bontihm’s compound, up a winding road on Fortune Hill, just a couple of miles down the main road. Jogesh borrowed an army jeep and made his way towards the compound, all the while feeling like a complete fool.
When he reached the massive front gate he was amazed to see how beautiful it was. The old, red brick house itself was set back from the iron wrought gate and it was fairly extensive. The land around it was well kept, with beautiful, wild flowers covering the grounds and fountains with magnificent, dancing cherubs squirted water from their mouths on either side of the driveway.
Nervously, Jogesh walked up the path leading up to the house, went up a flight of stairs to the front door and, placing his finger on the doorbell, hesitated for a moment before pressing it. What if she doesn’t want to talk to me, what if she’s married, what if...? he wondered, every single conclusion running through his head like race horses.
Finally gathering up the nerve to go through with it, Jogesh pressed the doorbell. He then instantly considered walking away before anyone knew it was him that pressed the doorbell, but he also knew that if he walked away he would always wonder what if he had talked to her, and that was worse than actually finding out something he did not wish to hear about her.
An elderly man, who was pale with gray and black speckled, bushy eyebrows and graying black hair, opened the door. He wore a velvet robe that was a rich burgundy color with the initial B written on the left breast pocket. It was obvious that he was just turning in for the night.
“Ah, you are here to see Hamilda,” the old man said, his face lighting up. “The name is Bontihm.” He reached out and shook Jogesh’s hand. “Give me one moment. Please, have a seat.” He then invited Jogesh inside.
What the...? Jogesh was very confused. How did he...?
“Hamu said you might be coming by,” Bontihm said. “I’ll just go and fetch her.”
Confused, Jogesh sat down on a loveseat in the entryway of the house to wait for ‘Hamu’. He thought that the whole situation was even stranger than what happened at the restaurant, and contemplated leaving again, when Hamilda stepped into the foyer. Seeing her again washed away all his worries and he forgot everything he was thinking about in an instant.
She had her black, curly hair down around her face, making her green eyes pop out even more, and she was wearing a strapless, light blue, chiffon, summer dress that stopped just above her knees. What a radiant beauty she was and for a moment, Jogesh was speechless.
***
When she saw Jogesh at the restaurant, Hamilda had sensed that he would come and find her, but she did not know it would be so soon. When she came home, Bontihm had noticed that there was something different about her. She didn’t have much of an appetite and she was not talking much, which was not like her at all. He convinced her to tell him what was bothering her and that was when she told him about the man she had met at the restaurant, the feeling she got when she looked at him, and her sense of ‘knowing’ that their chance meeting was not the last time they would see each other. Hamilda was happy Jogesh came to find her because she wanted to talk to him and get to know him better. She wanted to find out why she felt like she may have a connection with him.
Hamilda introduced herself to him again and, when he finally spoke, found out his name was Captain Jogesh Shing. They began to talk and discovered that they liked a lot of the same things and they were very much alike in their views of life. For the next couple of days afterwards, whenever Jogesh had a free moment, he would try and find her, whether it was at Bontihm’s compound or at the restaurant. They enjoyed each other’s company so much so that, when it was time for Jogesh to go back to his base in Sheidem City, it was very hard to say a final goodbye. He vowed that he would never forget her and that he would write to her all the time, and visit her whenever possible. Usually, if it was another man, Hamilda would have doubted that she would ever hear from him again, but she knew their story was not completely over.
Sure enough, just a few days after he left, Hamilda received her first letter from Jogesh, and, every week afterwards, they sent letters to each other back and forth. What started off as a close friendship, gradually turned into love with each letter that was written. By the following summer, when Jogesh came to visit Hamilda on leave, he asked her to be his wife.
At first, Hamilda did not agree to the marriage because, having kept her Dokami ancestry hidden from him, she could not agree to live a life with him filled with dishonesty. And, because she loved him more than life itself, she made the difficult decision to tell him as much as she could without scaring him with the hope that he would find her crazy and leave, never to look back.
It didn’t work.
The next day, Bontihm revealed something to Hamilda that she could have never predicted. Jogesh was of Dokami blood as well, he was just never made aware of it. His father was human and his mother was a direct descendant of the Dokami bloodline but he never displayed any powers all his life. Years of ancestral restraint kept that from him.
With Bontihm’s permission, Hamilda conjured up the nerve to talk to Jogesh about their lineage. She thought he would need more convincing but he believed her right away.
“It makes total sense,” Jogesh said, referring to the day they met. “Our love. It was meant to be.” He went on to say how he was more upset that she had kept something so major from him for so long. The fact that she had powers did not surprise him. He knew that she was special and had a very strong intuition from the moment he talked to her. He just did not know how strong her intuition was. Hamilda went on to explain to him that she could not divulge her secret because she had to wait to find out if he was a person she could trust with it. With her explanation, he understood why she kept the secret from him and accepted that it was for the best.
A week later, the day before Jogesh was to report back to the army base in Sheidem City, Hamilda and Jogesh were married with Bontihm’s blessings. Hamilda moved with her husband to the base and Jogesh finally gave Hamilda the confidence that she was lacking with her ability to maximize her powers. With her increased happiness, confidence, and her husband’s help, she was able to become stronger. By the age of twenty-five, she had surpassed even Bontihm’s strength and abilities and had learned a few more as well, such as the ability to manipulate fire and water.
Hamilda
loved her husband very much. She strongly believed that he was an amazing gift
from her deceased parents that could never be replaced.
Nande Orcel is the Author of Secret of
Omordion: Book One of the Omordion Trilogy. Learn more about her and her epic
fantasy novel at nandeorcel.com
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Twitter: @nande_orcel
