Unassuming, the Verdant Drinkhouse cozily welcomed its few morning patrons out of the drizzling rain. It was nestled between a single-storey home and a bakery fallen into disrepair, shouldered by alleys, and casting flickering firelight through the streaky front windows. The dark clouds lingering overhead pulled close to the world, oppressing a sense of night upon the mid-morning city. Continue reading Renado 48
Each minute tread slowly past Ren. He sat with his back against a bar in Pranan’s Hill. A cider sat on his gut, supported there by one hand. Beside him, Kazra smirked at his impatience and drank from her own ale. Captain Urro and Sarno’s men were playing dice, but each rattle seemed to remind Ren that only seconds had slipped by, and Woodro had not yet returned from the mysterious estate where reports placed Karsef and Crollem. Caged. Continue reading Renado 47
The news came shortly before lunch. There were two men hanging in cages in Pranan’s Hill. The men who had heard this reported it to the crowded common room of the Blue Evening Inn to Raya’s twenty-odd supporters. Raya let Ailo and Benn ask the questions while she digested the information. Continue reading Raya 43
Raya sat with her back against the cool stone wall and inhaled deeply. Benn had insisted on picking the lock, despite Ailo’s offer to do the deed himself. He fiddled quickly, his eyes focused and a layer of sweat on his brow. It felt like it was taking too long—guards were patrolling ten feet over their heads, after all. Continue reading Raya 42
For another two weeks, Aralim and his friends continued to live in the besieged city of Tal’lashar. Aralim spent some of his time speaking with the poor people of Tal’lashar, with the help of Nilless. He was surprised to learn that there were no homeless in the city. If anyone could not afford a house, they were given shelter and food from the Queb of their choice. Nill informed Aralim that all forty-seven offered this privilege. Continue reading Aralim 92
In a moment of tranquility, Ren sat with his nephew on a porch chair in front of the tavern. The passersby mostly ignored him, save an amiable wave here and there. Rado was five months old now, and when he was awake he looked at Ren with big green eyes—their family’s emerald ones. When he was asleep, like he was now, his wide furrowed brow slackened and his mouth started to drool. Ren, teary eyed, looked back at the street side. Would Rado ever know the full extent of tragedy that brought him into this world? Continue reading Renado 46
With a sore back, Farek hunched over his desk and signed another notice of deposit. He added the total to his ledge and then, sighing loudly, he leaned back in the armchair. His office, as Head of Finances, was piled with shelves. Each shelf was laden with folios or served as a frame for dusty moth-eaten scrolls. Despite its fragility, it was utterly still, and silent. The kink in Farek’s shoulders, nibbling its way up into his neck, was the most chaotic thing in the room.
He let out his breath and moved over the next document for his perusal. A letter from Lord Udo. His eyes had only just made it through the first rambling sentence, when the door of his office creaked open and a timid servant poked her head in. “What is it, Missak?” Continue reading Farek 47
In the space between the dry sand, where the tide didn’t reach, and the swirling fog of sand beneath the surface of the ocean, there was an entire land of seashell mountains, torrential storms of seafoam rain, and monstrous leviathans with crustacean claws. Arn prowled that land, following the bird that blocked out the sun. The hazy limits of this fictional world were his destination, but on the way he fought the boldest crabs with a bright shining sword. Continue reading Arn 52
Whether she liked it or not, Raya had to accept the advise of her friends. She could not join one of the factions of Ith. She had no interest in joining the gang of Domeran, here at the edge of Massed Alley, but even the Delivered—the freed slaves of the Mage Kings—would be as likely to put her and Axar to death as they would be to listen to Raya’s urgent explanation that she had never supported the Mage Kings. Continue reading Raya 41
The first fight, after the Mage Kings fell, unfolded a week after Ren and his men had acted. In the center of Pranan’s Hill, Renado and his men waited in the Targon Tavern, far from the action, but the story got to them. A guardsman from the city watch, walking along Night Kra, brushed against an ex-slave. The brush had been a shove to at least one party involved, and a fistfight had become a brawl, to all parties involved. Continue reading Renado 45