spinning yarns from heartstrings
The masons worked quickly, layering thick slabs of stone across the barbed fence while the guardsman patrolled the eastern quadrant. They monitored their progress for three days straight, one of them always watching until they knew every step of their routine. It would only take another four days, five at the most, before the […]
Mother Patrice warned them all not to venture into the crypts on the day they took their vows, refusing to answer questions as to why. For years, the darkness taunted them all, but none were brave enough to test the very steadfast protection of God by going against the reverend mother. Sister Janice had always […]
It was the most complicated spell he’d ever seen, but in order to stop the war before there was no one left to fight in it, Raestes knew he had no choice. Four days he spent combing through the incantation, learning the complicated enunciation checking and rechecking his stores to make certain he had all […]
We gathered in the valley on the Twilight of Souls, anxious as our stomachs roiled in anticipation. Everyone we lost that year stood patiently in line. Amira, the baker’s daughter. The old cobbler, Leth Sorensen. The Harthlet twins, Seve and Kronin. Those were the only ones I’d known personally, but among them stood a host […]
“Of course, we all wear masks,” the master of strings said without ceremony or pretense. “Every single one of us dons two faces at once, sometimes three or four or even more. A different face for each of our moods, for every occasion, if you will. But what most people fail to realize as they […]
Underneath her skin she is so much more then the good girl she pretends to be. Not patient, not sweet, not gentle like Mother taught her. Underneath her skin there is fire, simmering her blood, bubbling the chemicals in her brain, crackling her fat, making rage plume like smoke from her ears and her nostrils. […]
Each year on Endcallers Eve, the priesthood sent three of their finest to the Hell Gates to reinforce the seals. Brother Mulvor no longer took the task seriously. He’d been Brother Dalos’ age his first trip, and remembered how eager he’d been. How he trembled as old Brother Somnali sent him forward to pronounce the […]
Ni’rikun felt calm for the first time in ages, the greatest part of her centered as the djinn whirled like smoke across the desert sands. Whispers and promises tickled her ears while the threads of their souls lashed at her skin like angry snakes, whipping open wounds inside her until they began to fester and […]
Scholars said the ruins led to another world, as alien to the surfacers as it was forgotten. Technology existed there the likes of which those above couldn’t even begin to fathom, much less replicate. Their tales were fascinating, of course, but nowhere near as intriguing as what the witch women had to say. Allegedly, there […]
One day he would rebuild her, all of her–she whom he lost in order to find himself, but first he needed to remember her face in perfect detail. The tightly pinched lips that once told him: no! don’t! STOP! The wide, terrified eyes that refused to look at him because they saw him, always saw […]