0 Comments
0 Shares
0 Views
0 Reviews
Directory
Discover new ideas, create new connections and make new friends
-
Please log in to like, share and comment!
-
The Faded AlibiThe carriage wheels groaned against the cobblestones of the capital, a rhythmic grinding that seemed to match the hollow ache in Elias’s chest as he pressed his forehead against the cold glass. He was twelve years old, thin as a reed, and he carried with him the desperate, instinctual weight of a son who had watched his father, Thomas, waste away in the palace kitchens, coughing blood into his...0 Comments 0 Shares 0 Views 0 Reviews
-
The Distant NightmareThe first thing you notice is the smell: wet chalk and old copper, a scent that sits heavy in the throat like swallowed dust. You count the steps as you climb the ramp to the Palace of Vael’s lower gate, one hundred and twelve, a number you have memorized to keep your hands from shaking. The war is a distant rumble, a vibration in the stone beneath your boots, but here, in the shadow of the...0 Comments 0 Shares 0 Views 0 Reviews
-
The Wistful SagaThe ledger lay open on the kitchen table, the ink still wet and smelling of iron and regret. I counted the debts again, three times, my finger tracing the columns of figures that had turned my life into a spreadsheet of failures. Four thousand, two hundred pounds. That was the sum of my ruin, a number that sat in my chest like a stone. I was forty-two years old, and I had nothing left to sell...0 Comments 0 Shares 0 Views 0 Reviews
-
The Faded SutraThe name was called out across the yard, sharp and thin as a wire snapping in the cold. "Thorne." Elias looked up from his shovel, the iron blade biting into the frozen mud of the Ironclad Penitentiary yard. He was forty-two, a man who had once broken a man’s jaw with a single, clean blow, but now the effort of lifting the shovel made his lungs feel like they were filled with wet sand. He...0 Comments 0 Shares 0 Views 0 Reviews
-
The Wistful WitnessThe letter lay on the mahogany desk, its seal broken, the ink still wet and glistening like a fresh wound in the parchment. Elias Thorne read the words twice, his eyes tracing the formal script of the High Court’s administrative office, a list of grievances regarding his recent conduct. He folded the paper with a precision that bordered on ritual, the crease sharp as a blade, and placed it in...0 Comments 0 Shares 0 Views 0 Reviews
-
The Faded MasqueradeThe fever broke in the cellar, leaving Elias gasping for air that tasted of wet stone and rot. He was forty years old, though the lines on his face suggested a man twice that age, and he lay curled on a straw mattress that had long since lost its spring. The dream had been of Lord Ashworth’s face, not the stern mask of the living, but the slack, grayed visage of the dead, staring down from the...0 Comments 0 Shares 0 Views 0 Reviews
-
The Distant BladeThe reprimand was taped to the inside of my locker, a sheet of white paper stark against the gray metal, and I did not open it until I was alone in the barracks. I had just returned from a three-hour pursuit through the high desert, my boots caked in red dust, my heart still hammering with the adrenaline of a man who had done his job well. I wanted the promotion. I wanted the stability that...0 Comments 0 Shares 0 Views 0 Reviews
-
The Wistful VoyageThe match struck, hissing in the dry air. Elias Thorne held the flame to the corner of the leather binding, watching the wax catch. He was fifty-eight, a tenured historian whose hands trembled only when he held a pen, and he had spent the last decade ensuring his department’s funding by chasing the ghost of his father’s maritime journals. The books sat on the desk, a stack of three volumes...0 Comments 0 Shares 0 Views 0 Reviews
-
The Pale TowerThe theodolite lens was cold against Major Elias Thorne’s thumb, a slick circle of glass that refused to hold the image steady, vibrating with a frequency that seemed to rise from the iron tripod rather than the air. He adjusted the spirit level, the bubble sliding off center despite his meticulous corrections, and watched the crosshairs drift across the grey expanse of the northern moor where...0 Comments 0 Shares 0 Views 0 Reviews
Arabic
French
Spanish
Portuguese
Deutsch
Turkish
Dutch
Italiano
Russian
Romaian
Portuguese (Brazil)
Greek