spinning yarns from heartstrings
“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 […]
“What part of till death do us part did you not understand, Carmella?”
He was supposed to be tutoring the boy, teaching him the fundamentals of rulership and government, about the provinces surrounding his kingdom, and the art of managing the crown’s finances because it was important that a ruler never allow someone else to do all the work. It was how mischief was made, how greedy fools […]
He threw her body in the well and thought that was the end of her, of the harm she would have brought him. He would go back to his life, forget his mistake, honor his wife the way he was supposed to. In time, he became an honest man, save for the dark secret he […]
Captain’s log; Stardate 4198, Year of the Goatrab Bit: It never fails to surprise me how far cultural similarities travel through the cosmos. Out here on the cusp of the Myceneaen Cluster, millions of light years away from Earth, we discovered an entire planetary system, three habitable worlds teeming with life dancing to the tune […]