Category: chapters

Our first days in the Holy Lands were a blur, a fact which I will regret for the rest of my life. These were the lands where the gods and their children had walked aeons before the first mortal life sprang into being. I should have been singing awe-struck praise-songs, pouring libations out on the Read more

Each of us had come with the prince knowing full well that we might die. But … what had befallen Veralar Tann? To forget who you were, who you had been, who you wished to become? That was a fate far worse than death. I wanted to wail and beat my breast and gnash my Read more

I might have made plans not to be seduced by Khanaarre of the Black Mask, if it had ever occurred to me that it might come up. In defense of my forethought, I don’t think that she had planned to do it. It had just … happened. And on a very immediate, personal level, I Read more

Of the six of us, only Veralar was seriously wounded, with three broken ribs and lacerations all over her body. Rennin and Orland were cut and bruised and battered and would look more like sausages than men for some time, and would be well served by several days of rest, but they were able to Read more

The city of Shii-sherah had been abandoned a thousand years ago, but before that it had been one of the crown jewels of the short-lived Illustrian Empire. Unlike the capitol, or Gyyria, or Anardokopolis, which were cities of state and trade and industry, well-placed in the heartland and the oldest of the new territories, Shii-sherah Read more

The dragon was massive. It was terrifying. It was magnificent. Tears filled my eyes. For a moment, I gave up trying to find my feet. I forgot my companions. I fucking forgot to breathe. Its head was as big as my torso. Its eyes, the color of molten gold, each the size of my two Read more

Whatever I had expected of the Draddial and the uurnigath, the reality was beyond anything that I had imagined. I had grown up on the border of the Wolfwood. My mother, Maosee, had had a handful of encounters with the Children of Enhyl over the years. Where the djuunan seemed to think of the uurnigath Read more

It was almost certainly not the same hut that I had been given when I first came to the Wolfwood – I remembered it as smaller, for one, though that might have just been perspective – but it was similar enough. Wooden construction, roughly circular, the dirt floor about fifteen feet across, with a south-facing Read more

“No,” said the dark and wizened Child of Enhyl. “The Prophet of Enhyl has foreseen your coming. We know who you bring with you, and the ambition you serve. The House Traianum oversaw generations of encroachment into our territories. We see no reason to believe that this scion of that House will be any different.” Read more

“I am the leader of this hunt,” said the woman who clearly led this small pack. “I will speak with you.” I lowered my arms and let the ward fall. It wasn’t my best work anyway, but hopefully it had been good enough to ensure that most of my wounds would close. I wanted to Read more