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The Golden QuestThe nib of my quill scratched against the vellum, a sound like a fingernail dragging down a chalkboard, as I copied the name of King Aethelred the Third. The ink bled. It did not dry; it pooled, dark and wet, seeping into the fibers of the parchment like a bruise forming under skin. I wiped my thumb across the page, expecting the wetness to lift onto my skin, but the stain remained, spreading...0 Comments 0 Shares 0 Views 0 Reviews
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The Faded GuestThe crack in the porcelain bird was a jagged white line, like a scar on a pale cheek. Elias Thorne held it in his left hand, his fingers stained with the ink of the report he had just finished typing. The office smelled of dust and cold coffee. Outside, the rain lashed against the window of the municipal building, a relentless, gray drumming that matched the rhythm of his own pulse. He was...0 Comments 0 Shares 0 Views 0 Reviews
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The Pale ExileThe white birches stood in a row, their bark peeling like scabbed skin, and Elias Thorne knew with a certainty that felt physical, a tightness in the chest, that if he turned his head, the trees would follow. He woke at four in the morning, the sheets damp with sweat, his lungs rattling with a wet, heavy cough that sounded like a drain backing up. He was forty-two, an actuary at Halloway &...0 Comments 0 Shares 0 Views 0 Reviews
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The Distant WoundThe low hum that has plagued Ostra for three generations is not a sound you hear with your ears, but a pressure you feel in the teeth, a vibration that turns the air into a thick, grey sludge. You are Elias, forty-two years old, a stone-mason whose hands are permanently stained with the chalky dust of the Old Hall’s foundation, and you have only until the winter solstice to repair the central...0 Comments 0 Shares 0 Views 0 Reviews
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The Faded RootThe rain against the windowpane sounded like fingers tapping on glass, a rhythmic, insistent knocking that matched the pulse in Elias Thorne’s temple. He sat at the workbench, the ledger open before him, the numbers blurring into a smear of red ink that looked disturbingly like dried blood. Across from him, Mara wiped a streak of sawdust from her apron, her eyes fixed on the door as if she...0 Comments 0 Shares 0 Views 0 Reviews
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The Pale DanceThe rejection letter lay in Arthur Vane’s palm, the paper thin and brittle as the wing of a dead moth, its ink smudged where his thumb had pressed against the official seal. He was thirty-four years old, a junior lecturer at a provincial university in the industrial heart of England, and he held that single sheet of paper as if it were a verdict on his life, the words "lack of practical...0 Comments 0 Shares 0 Views 0 Reviews
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The Golden CellarThe mud sucked at Elias Thorne’s boots with the persistence of a starving dog. He stood in the breach of the city wall, the rain hammering the dented steel of his breastplate, the Duke’s crest now a blurred smudge of grime and blood. "Hold the line, Captain," a voice shouted from the darkness behind him, but Elias did not turn. He was not holding a line. He was waiting for the end. The order...0 Comments 0 Shares 0 Views 0 Reviews
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The Wistful SkylineThe glass in my left hand was cold, a jagged triangle of silver that did not reflect my face. I held it up to the dim light of the border town’s only café, watching the reflection of the empty chair behind me where I had just sat. My nose, my scarred cheek, the hollows under my eyes—none of it was there. Only the dust motes dancing in the slant of afternoon sun, and the back of the wooden...0 Comments 0 Shares 0 Views 0 Reviews
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The Wistful DinnerThe air in the detention center smelled of damp wool and stale coffee, a thick, cloying scent that seemed to settle in the back of Elias’s throat. He stood before the glass partition, his hands gripping the metal railing until his knuckles turned white, watching his younger brother Julian sit slumped in a plastic chair. Julian looked smaller than he had in years, his shoulders hunched, his eyes...0 Comments 0 Shares 0 Views 0 Reviews
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