ValentineDavis21
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The carriage rounded the corner, pulling onto the hot cobblestones. Applause and cheers filled the streets, rising over the tops of the buildings like thunder. Everywhere Crowe looked people stood shoulder to shoulder. They lined up before the barriers that had been set up in the center of the street to create a path for the carriage to travel. Were it not for the guards who stood vigil the practitioner sensed they would have jumped over the barriers to surround the carriage. The sorcerer now un
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The cask of aether wine turned out to be a big mistake. The sound of a fist knocking into the door reverberated like hammer blows, waking Crowe out of a drunken sleep. He rolled over with a groan, burying his face deeper into the pillow. As if he could hide. “Twin o’rre,” Barghast whined. “There’s someone at the door.” “Make them go away,” the practitioner murmured. “Tell them I am not to be bothered.” Before the
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“That’s the last time I’ve seen or heard from Bennett. I don’t know if he’s alive or dead. He could be here in the city or somewhere out there, fighting for his life, injured, starving. I haven’t been able to get him out of my mind and I don’t know if I can forgive myself for how I treated him in those final moments.” After what felt like an eternity of talking, Crowe drew his recounting to a close. He looked into the fireplace and was surprised to see the log had burned down to glowing embers.
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By the time Crowe reaches Jeb’s cabin it is past midnight. The temperature has dropped, chilling Crowe to the bone in spite of the extra layers he wears. Jeb climbs down from his horse and glances at the cabin. He makes a warding sign over his broad chest, muttering under his breath. The practitioner doesn’t need to go inside to know that something is wrong. Very wrong. He can already feel it. There is an air of oppression about the place that has nothing to do with the dar
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For the next three weeks nothing of incident happens. Petras returns to his bed-ridden self. With this shift back into sickness comes the loss of motor functions, the loss of independence. The loss of self. Crowe returns to his duties of tending to him while also trying to keep the house from falling down around their ears. While the worst of the blizzard has passed, driving winds continue to buffet the house, making it groan in protest. As if Petras and the house are one. When he dies will the
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The peals of the bell mark the top of the hour. A cold hour on a cold day. The few streets that make up the village of Annesville are covered with snow and ice; snow so high it comes up to one’s kneecaps. The blizzard has passed, but the winds still blow, chapping hands and faces and tearing off shingles from the roofs of homes. The villagers are used to such weather for few have ventured beyond the borders of their town. And they are used to the war: for what is war but another storm.
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The moment he touches Felisin’s hand, Mother invades his mind, a mental assault unlike anything he’s experienced before. He shouldn’t have been surprised. Mother is the oldest thing he’s encountered, the strongest, and she bats him aside as if he is little more than a flea. He tries to catch his balance but he has no arms, he has no legs. The mind is without shape, without a body. You are a mistake, she tells him and her voice rings with fury. You’re not meant to be here.
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Only it wasn’t. Not the Petras he knew. Not the old man who had laid in bed, demented, often incoherent and sometimes violent. This Petras was younger, a middle-aged man with silver streaks in his raven black hair. Dressed in black robes. Still the resemblance was uncanny. The remote expression. The mouth that twisted in a permanent scowl. Hardened eyes, unreadable, fathomless, unpredictable. It was like looking into a mirror and seeing one’s own reflection. Crowe want
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Time did not run normally in this place. Minutes could stretch into hours, hours into days, in the dark until one could not remember what the sun felt like on their face. In this place one could get lost and never find their way out…like a little girl who had run into the caves to escape monsters, only to become one herself. Perhaps this place will make monsters of us all, Crowe thought. Algae and moss climbed up the ancient rock walls, seeping out of cracks, branching into
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For a split second Crowe plunged, his feet curled into his chest, his arms hugging his knees. He had just enough time to suck in a breath before he slammed into the water. He unfurled himself, waving his arms to slow his descent towards the black jagged rocks below; they looked sharp enough to cut flesh on. He reached into the pocket of his robes, gripping his dagger in one hand and his blasting rod in the other. Preparing himself for battle. Mercius’s fire burned within him, yearning to be rele
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Crowe ducked into the cold shadows of The Salander. Lask, Augusta, and Boomer waded ahead of him, shouting for Stamets, spraying salt water in every direction. The inner chamber was flooded, the water rising to hip level. Lanterns bobbed in the dark, diminishing as the demolition team ventured deeper into the bowels of the large pirate ship. A terrible blood-curdling howl cut the air behind him, bringing the practitioner to a stop. A knot of terror twisted in his belly. Barg
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Crowe slept but his slumber was not peaceful. It felt as if his mind shifted between two realities, only one slightly more desirable than the other. In the one he preferred he rested in the arms of his lycan, safely tucked against his chest. When he returned to this reality it was easy to burrow into warm fur and forget that they were trapped in a cave full of monsters and that he had lost a lot of blood. In this reality the illusion of safety was a lie. In the other he was pinned at the bottom
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Every time he breathed wet ash clogged his lungs. It constantly drifted down from the black clouds overhead. It bubbled up between cracked cobblestones. It clung to him until it made a quilt against the cold and yet it was no match for the press of dead bodies that smothered him from all sides. It took all his strength to raise his head. He listened for the sound of boots sifting through the black snow. He knew he wasn’t alone. There were always the carrion birds who came to
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Crowe leaned against the stone wall, his heart a nervous tic in his throat. He watched the darkness at the end of the corridor, waiting for it to part and for his lycan to appear. He tried to distract himself by looking over the map but fear kept pulling his mind away. He gripped the map with clammy fingers. The others were quiet. Lask had ordered them to stop and take a break while Barghast scouted ahead. Lask nudged Crowe, startling the practitioner. “You’re worrying so mu
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Barghast was a dark outline against the explosion of blue light that pulsed from within the depths of the cave. He had to duck to be able to squeeze himself through the entrance; after a few steps he faded out of sight. Crowe stopped, waving for Lask and the others to do the same, waiting for Barghast to reappear. A dull whine like the buzzing of insect wings filled his ears. It was impossible to tear his eyes away from the light. It tugged at his mind the way the tide of the ocean pulls at a bo
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Night outside the city was deceptively calm. The stars blazed in all of their celestial glory, dancing around a full moon. Over the top of a small sand dune, Crowe could hear the waves crashing against the sands of the Gaulhill Sea. The sound reminded him of the stories he’d read of pirates who plundered the unexplored edges of the map in search of treasure. How silly those stories seem now, he thought. I didn't find pirates at the edge of the map. I found dragons. Crowe and Barghast led th
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The governor of Caemyth and Commander Lucijan stood at both sides of a round table; the table stood in the center of a room Crowe recognized at once. He’d visited once before. In a fashion. It was one of the things he remembered vividly, a dark spot on the horizon. A dark spot that will grow like a tumor until it consumes everything. His stomach gave a terrible twist of dread at the thought. This time he would come out with the truth - no matter what Commander Lucijan or Roan thought of him. It
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Barghast was whining in his sleep: a high-pitched keening sound that hurt the practitioner's head. It was a sound of fear, of pain, of misery and it hurt Crowe's heart to hear it. He rolled on his side with a wince, his body protesting in a thousand different places, shoving a pillow onto the floor in the process. The Okanavian rested on his side, his knees curled in towards his chest; it made him look small. Feeble. “Barghast.” The practitioner reached out carefully until the tips of his
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In retrospect Crowe wished he hadn’t told Commander Lucijan to take his soldiers and leave. At the time it seemed like the right thing to do - the noble thing. But it hadn’t been smart. It hadn’t been tactile. He’d also sent Barghast away and though he knew the lycan would return, it would never be fast enough. Because now he was alone with the big bad beast and there was no one left in the village to help him. There were, however, plenty of bodies. They littered the ground,
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I kind of wrote myself into a corner/am not satisfied with how the story has been going in terms of the second loop, so I rewrote the last half of Chapter 62 and Chapter 63. Chapter 63 is completely new material. I am working my way back to where things ended in Chapter 65.
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Each scream, each pop of gunfire was a cruel reminder of what Barghast had left behind. It took all of his willpower to remain with the villagers, to remain with the woman and man who Crowe and he had risked so much to pull from the fire. He resented the man and woman now who were safe from the worst of the danger while his lover remained behind, still in the thick of it. But his twin o’rre had told them to lead them back to safety and return for him; once they were back in the city he would do
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Crowe and Barghast followed Lask down the staircase at a run. Crowe could not shake the feeling that he was still asleep, still dreaming. The young soldier who had pulled the practitioner and lycan out of bed made no attempt at providing an explanation. At the bottom of the stairs they darted through the double doors into the bright morning light. The sight of Lucijan sitting astride his horse dressed in full armor broke through his surreal daze like the tip of a needle puncturing flesh. Six oth
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“Stop,” Crowe begged Lask. “Please, I need a minute.” The world was spinning out of control. Worse yet, he felt an overwhelming need to get away from his rescuer. Despite the fact that he could not give a rational reason to the cause, the need was visceral, an endless crawling up his spine. He could still hear the woman's raspy voice in his head: All that you’ve experienced you will experience again, each time worse than the last. To his relief the horse did come to a sto
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The journey from the massacre at the beach to Caemyth did nothing to improve Crowe’s initial impression of Lucijan. The commander led them towards the city at a constant gallop, moving with the haste and determination of someone who has been called back to battle. His troops had no problems keeping it up: it seemed they had been trained for such travel, able to shape their bodies with the will of their mounts. Their horses were tall and leanly built, their progress unimpeded by the sand. The sam
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Crowe was pinned to Barghast's chest, a rabbit trapped in the grip of a beast. Part of his mind wasn't sure if he was still dreaming or awake. His body was all too aware of what was happening. He reminded himself this was Barghast; he reminded himself he was safe. The lycan would never do anything to hurt you. Not intentionally. And yet their physical proximity was a reminder of just how much bigger the Okanavian was than he. Barghast clung to him, a growl vibrating in his throat. Something hot
