Cane23

That's a good one... but ships don't have a conscience! 🤪

@Topher Lydon...did both Ishan and Wylan lose their magic for good, or it is just temporary?!

"Cards" is the only story of yours that I haven't read yet... I'm still waiting for "Godot" to see it labeled as 'complete'! 😉 As for "Endings," that one is perfect - nothing too much, nothing too little... simply perfect. I find myself coming back to it from time to time. But I do remember an awful sister in one of your stories! 😁

Darien and his men cannot save the people of Jerusalem. All they can do is try to save their own lives. The wounds will heal in time, but the scars upon their souls may take a lifetime to fade.

Yes, you did! I still remember that bastard from Exes and Ohs. As for August's physical resemblance to his late mother and the theory that Albert is still grieving and finds it painful to look at him - it's certainly possible that grief contributed to his cruelty. However, Albert seems to have been that way even when his wife was still alive. To me, it almost feels as though Albert may not be August's biological father. The word "bastard" is mentioned several times throughout the story, which made me wonder if it was intended as a clue or hint toward that possibility.

The tension is almost unbearable... it was only a matter of time before someone got hurt. But what was that about James and those not-so-hidden looks at Ash?

Hope they never do! Not that Ishan is merely an infidel in their eyes - and a prince, nonetheless. He's also a master of witchcraft and, above all, an abomination. More than enough reason to burn him at the stake, probably preceded by horrible torture!

Except for that strange body-swap incident with Ishan and helping Julian with the arrows, Wylan hasn't been on a real war mission yet. This is his chance to prove that he's not some fragile person who needs to be shielded from danger. Of course, Darien is concerned about his husband's safety, but both Wylan and Stephen made a good point - Ishan is family, and Wylan shouldn't be kept in a golden cage.

Rob seems to suspect something. It almost appears that his job is to keep a hawk-like watch on August. Knowledge of August's affections and preferences could be a dangerous weapon in Rob's hands!

Beautiful...though it seems like the calm before the storm!

The Book 2 is introducing a Devin as new protagonist. What’s remarkable is that Devin is not haunted by memories. He is haunted by the shape of erased meaning. “A grief shaped exactly like something, with the something cut out and the edges left to ache.” The tree remembers what human consciousness no longer can...throughout Book 1, the terror of Mister D’s world was that identity could be consumed, rewritten, redistributed. Here we discover something survived destruction - but in nonhuman form. Luka’s sacrifice did not fail because the “clever ones” were weak. It survived because reality itself cannot perfectly erase love, connection, or fate. The author describes fate as water. Not fate as destiny, prophecy, divine command, punishment...but as flow. “The ground was always shaped to carry it there” People believe they are making choices freely, and they are...but beneath those choices exists: longing, memory, love, trauma and, of course -hunger. These form invisible channels and water simply follows them. So, Devin walking toward the loud meaningless nightlife district is also fate - not because someone controls him, but because his damaged soul naturally flows toward numbness. That’s why fate is described as patient rather than dramatic. The “clever ones” are clearly the architects of the erasure. Not merely memory manipulators or ordinary conspirators, but creatures who believed reality itself could be edited. The clever ones account for kings, powerful people, major forces...Mr. D... but they ignore incidental people, emotional residue, forgotten witnesses, human unpredictability. They misunderstand reality because they think importance is hierarchical. But @CasualWanderer82 argues - small things carry enormous consequences which is deeply anti-aristocratic and anti-occult in a fascinating way. The great cosmic architects overlook the hustler, the unnamed man, the “drop of water.” and that becomes their undoing. This is almost biblical - the stone that trips the king’s horse. Power fails because it cannot imagine vulnerability as force. The “clever ones” would never build an entire metaphysical erasure system around accounting for Mouse. And yet Mouse carries names, habits, emotional histories... and that’s enough because systems can erase records - they cannot fully erase human relational residue. Mouse doesn’t arrive as prophet or hero - he arrives talking too much, half-hustling, rambling. Tthat’s exactly why he breaks the system. @CasualWanderer82 actually says - history survives most powerfully in the people no one considered important enough to silence. The chapter is ultimately arguing something profoundly human beneath all the supernatural machinery - people can be separated from truth, they can be manipulated, rewritten...they can be made to forget. But deep emotional recognition leaves marks below conscious memory, and those marks continue trying to return to one another. This chapter treats love not as emotion alone, but as a structural force of reality. The clever ones could erase the story, but they could not erase the shape the story carved into the soul.

There's a film, The Man Who Would Be King, based on a novella by Rudyard Kipling, starring Sean Connery and Michael Caine in the leading roles. In a way, Darien stands at a similar crossroads - there is enough gold and silver for all of them to return to Europe and live as wealthy, high-ranking noblemen. But then there is ambition - the lure of a crown in this ruthless land, where their doom awaits

Wow... oh boy, did I really say Charlie could be a role model? Ahahaha! Charlie needs constant babysitting!!! 😜 But this line: “Because he’s my bloody boyfriend, you annoying oaf. He did it for me.” I did not see that coming. 😱 What a fun chapter. Great job!

Well, it's highly romanticized version of the history. On the Balkans, we have the collective memory of Ottoman empire the same as Baltics about Russian (Soviet)!

The ceremonial blow, to remind him of the oaths he has just sworn, A dirty thought has crossed my mind reading this line...

They were totally not satisfied.

This is an early publication indeed... It's 7 a.m. CET, and "luckily" I couldn't sleep. Now, what do we have here? The scene in Raymond's camp looks like something straight out of an apocalyptic zombie horror movie. Sometimes reality is more terrifying than fiction. We also see the shift in Vanguard - not by the direct order of Lord Hascal, now Prince Hascal, but through his steadily growing authority and power. The rise of a dictatorship does not always happen overnight; it is often a gradual process. Darien may save the Crusades, but it is Wylan who is going to save him!

These are epic!!!

The Secret Author contest

WOW...THANK YOU!!! I love the story...eagerly waiting new chapters!!!

Well, I don't see this saga as a quest for the crown, but as a quest for the inner self. This is not the story of Darien learning to become a king; it is the story of Darien learning to become a father. And the true destination is not Jerusalem. The real journey is the search for a way back home. In the end, his soul will not be redeemed by claiming the crown, but by renouncing it.

Too bad his reign was so short! Is it true that Godfrey walked barefoot through Jerusalem out of reverence for Christ's suffering and wounds?

Oh, wow... It'll take some time to digest this chapter. Let me grab a coffee first!