The door slammed.

Tassin came out of the back room, a startled look on his face.  “What was that?”

“Another entry for the list of people who are not happy for us.”

The alarm dropped away and he ambled forward.  His look said, plain as day, is that all?  “We’re going to run out of paper.  Who was it this time?”

“The priest.  He offered to heal me of your corruption.  I would have been touched if I wasn’t pretty sure there would have been fire involved for both of us.”

He sat back onto the arm of a chair and pulled her in.  “Who knew a cross-marriage would be so popular?”  He sounded inappropriately delighted.  His hand wove into her hair, pushing it back off her neck.

read more »

It pressed on Michael from the moment he walked in the gallery door.  The last exhibition of Itu experiential art, and it was packed, but the crush of humanity was hardly more than a thread against the overwhelming presence of the art.  The almost tangible buzz made him stumble and apologize to a woman who barely knew he was there.  A pickpocket’s dream, if only there were earplugs for the mind.

Michael looked out over the swimming room and saw him. A slouched figure, strangely alone, in front of a jangling, twisting work in the corner.  He closed his eyes, then pushed his way across, deliberately avoiding looking at the other man.  He fixed his gaze thoughtfully on a corner of the frame, trying not to see the art itself, and spoke.

“I was afraid you’d be here.”

A sharp laugh, and a twitch of the hand.  “You did say you wanted to say goodbye.”

“This isn’t what I meant.”  He slanted his eyes left.  “You look terrible.”  It was true.  Lucien was gaunt and jittery, unshaven.  Worse, the same consuming aura that radiated from the art seemed to spark from his skin.

read more »

The boy was quiet when he told them.  His chin was held determinedly high over the brand new Church soldier’s uniform, and his face was a mixture of resolve and apology for the shock he was giving them.

It was almost enough to make the old man laugh despite it all.  They had been headed here all the boy’s life.  Longer — ever since the moment his daughter had led an Eastern mercenary in the door.  He might never forgive Dyan for marrying Ellin then dying on that pointless campaign, but he’d seen that coming the way he’d seen this coming.  Inevitable.  It had been in every line of the boy from the time he was six, an uncanny anticipation of the soldier now before him.

read more »

She stood in the dusty parking lot, the peeling wooden door before her.  The warm glow coming through the bar windows seemed to beckon, a welcoming yellow that spoke of candlelight and the hearth.  Behind her, the unlit road stretched, featureless, into the dark.  She couldn’t remember how she had gotten there.  Her eyes narrowed suspiciously.

She pulled the door open.  The bar was empty but for the man behind the counter, and instead of stale beer, there was a faint whiff of incense.  She sighed.

“Is this another one of those damn allegorical bars?”

The bartender looked up from wiping a pint glass with a striped bar towel –when did real bartenders ever do that? — and nodded.  “You got yourself into a pretty bad accident,” he said with a lift of the eyebrow.  “What did you expect?”

read more »

He stood quietly, wind ruffling his hair, and watched her crush the talisman to powder.  The crunch of it under her boot was unnaturally loud, and this deserted corner at the edge of the city felt like the ends of the earth.

“You’re that sure.”

She didn’t even spare him a glance.  Her gaze was intent on the sparkling dust on the concrete, and a deep satisfaction showed on her face.  She spotted a thumbnail-sized fragment that had escaped destruction and hastened to remedy the situation, grinding it under her heel until what was left was lifted by the wind and blown away.

His hand lifted involuntarily to his own talisman, reassuringly safe and whole in his hip pocket.  “You’ll never be able to go back.”  He knew that she knew, that it was the whole point of the thing, but the words spilled out all the same.

She lifted her eyes to his, and they sparkled with an honest delight that he hadn’t seen in years.  “Never.”  Inexplicably, she gurgled a laugh, grabbed his hand, and pulled him off toward the city.

Welcome to this week’s Trifecta Writing Challenge!  This week called for 33 to 333 words on the third definition of the word CRUSH (verb):

1a : to squeeze or force by pressure so as to alter or destroy structure <crush grapes>
b : to squeeze together into a mass
2   : hug, embrace
3   : to reduce to particles by pounding or grinding <crush rock>

Thanks for reading!

It was the year that changed everything, they all agreed.  It was the year the revolution swept through the capital, the year ideas took flame and the new age began.  It was the year the young dreamers in the cities could hardly see for the stars sparking before their eyes, and everything seemed possible.

That was the only thing they seemed to agree on.  The discussions were complicated by the fact that no two scholars agreed on what to call it.  The elderly called it the 12th year of King Roland — the young firebrands at the university called it the Glorious Year — the new priests called it the Fourth Year of the Second Cycle of the Progenitor, whoever that was. Even all this time later, he still didn’t know.

He remembered it as an ordinary enough year.  The pear harvest had been moderately good.  One of the vats of fall ale had gone bad and had to be dumped out.  His youngest sister had gotten married.  The most unusual thing that had happened was that a mare two villages over had produced twins.  They hadn’t lived out the week, but he’d gone over to see them all the same.  The smith’s son had insisted it was an omen.  The whole village still laughed over that from time to time.

He trudged out onto the porch, dropped into the creaky old rocking chair, and smacked the old ashes out of his pipe against the bottom of his boot.  The leaves in the orchard rustled gently as he tamped in new tobacco.  The blossom was setting well this year; it should be a good harvest.  He leaned back with a creak.  The scent of the earth was rising like a wave under the morning sun.   The year that had changed everything.  He coughed out a laugh, and lit his pipe.

This week’s Trifecta Writing Challenge called for 33 to 333 words on the third definition of the word YEAR (noun):

Camilia was relaxing in a chair by the window when the slim black figure materialized out of the shadows.  She noted the ebony leathers with an amused arch of the eyebrow.

“How dramatic.  Dressing for your office?”

A smile appeared on the dark face as he sketched a bow.  “Dressing for travel.  I’m leaving for Maj Malai this evening.”

“Ah.”  She glanced out at the bright face of the moon.  Almost at the full; only a few nights from the hunt.  “You wanted to speak with me personally?”

A slight inclination of the head.  “All of the essentials were in the report my office provided to Sai” — Sai had briefed Camilia on it — “But our people in Shin Ai have picked up… some concerning sentiment regarding the Kanjirian trade agreement.”

“There’s been no mention of that in the dispatches from our embassy.”

“Indeed.”  His tone was studiously bland.

She sighed and put a hand up to rub the bridge of her nose.  The embassy in Shin Ai was the one her father had appointed the oldest of her half-brothers to.  Vahl, who’d had five years before her birth to think he might inherit the throne.

“Very well.  You will return to Maj Delumai…”

“Within the week.  I might have a word with my counterpart while I’m there.”

That drew a quirk of the mouth from her.  “You astonish me.”  She could think of few things less likely than two Tevalle spymasters resisting the temptation to exchange secrets.  “Good hunt to you.”

“Your majesty.”  He did her the courtesy of letting her hear the door open and close on the way out.

Camilia turned back to the window opening on the moonlit courtyard.  “Need you have given me so many siblings?”  There was no answer, but in a tree, a nightlark began to sing, so Camilia smiled and turned away.

Welcome to this week’s Trifecta Writing Challenge.  This week called for 33 to 333 words on the third definition of the word BLACK (adj.): 3: dressed in black .  Thanks for reading!

The witch finished the incantation and held her breath for a long moment, waiting.  A gust of icy wind swept past the candles ringing her living room, and a hollow voice sounded.  “Who summons me?”  A figure stepped out of the shadows into the circle of flame.

The witch’s eyes widened.  Tall and bony she had been expecting.  Dark flames in the eye sockets, check.  And okay, the grimoire hadn’t actually said there’d be black robes and a scythe, but this…  It was wearing a white wifebeater and a baseball cap — backward. A shiny black button shirt was slung over its shoulder, and the waistband of a pair of striped shorts protruded from the top of the jeans.  She couldn’t keep herself from reading it.  Abercr–  She shook herself.

“You’re kidding me.”

read more »

A clatter sounded from the other end of the room, cutting through the din.  Callie’s head jerked.  One of the other servants had dropped a charger of roast pig spectacularly on the floor.  She turned back to the table and filled another goblet.  These Atan loved their wine.

She brushed a sleeve.  Murmuring an apology, she withdrew.  She wasn’t at all sure they understood her, but it hardly mattered.  She kept her head down, and they ignored her.  She was happy to be nothing.

The duke sat at the head table by the guest of honor.  He was uneasy in his cousin’s seat, so newly come to him.  It was a very different gathering than the ones the old duke had used to have, these minor nobles in ill-fitting Atani robes bowing and scraping and laughing too loudly.  But he had fought, and so was gone. It made her face flush with shame, but in her memories of that day, the horror of the children’s execution was overwhelmed by her relief at being left alive.

The duke’s wife, white-faced, sat erect next to him.  Her smile was brittle and her movements tight and sharp.  Everyone knew why.  She had been a votary of Amala.  For anyone else, that would have meant an execution, but her life had been spared… for now.  Spared on condition of her husband’s obedience, his cooperation with their new overlords.  Callie wondered if the duchess felt the same way she did: kneeling before their altar, thinking she was damned, damned for betraying her faith.

The Primate, newly arrived from overseas, sat nearby, his forearms resting lightly on the table.  He was short, stocky, pale, and he coiled in the chair like a snake.  Callie shivered.  She was the littlest, the tiniest mouse.  There was bigger game under his eye.

The duke raised his glass in a shaking hand.  “To our glorious lord, the Dawn Emperor!”  The desperate roar of voices assaulted her ear, and she turned away.

Welcome to this week’s Trifecta Writing Challenge!  This week’s prompt calls for 33 to 333 words on the third definition of the word UNEASY (adj.):

1: causing physical or mental discomfort
2: not easy : difficult
3: marked by lack of ease : awkward, embarrassed <gave an uneasy laugh>

Thanks for reading!

Welcome to the weekend prompt at Trifecta Writing Challenge!  This weekend, they asked us to continue one of our 33 word responses with 33 more words.  I chose to follow up on Revelation.  Here’s my original response:

You’re my wife, mother of my children.  You can tell me.  What did the Oracle say?”  He clasped her hands earnestly.

Her voice was ghostly, remote.  “It said that I was your doom.”

And here’s the next bit:

A silence fell.  She stared doggedly into the distance.  Of course, of course it had to come to this.  He was thinking it, she knew. There was nothing else to think.

Her father.

Thanks for reading!