BONUS EPISODE In apology for the massive delays I’ve had the last week, Leila and I got together to make sure we could leave you all with something special over the weekend to say thanks for sticking around and putting up with the delays. So thanks, guys! This week’s going to be tense! – Ian [...]

Rhayd hadn’t slept well at all. After the shock of having to catch that idiot girl, his weak left arm had refused to let him find a comfortable position for more than five breaths before it began to ache again. After spending half the remaining darkness oscillating between a half dozen positions, he finally abandoned [...]

Edvard Thryche sighed, some visceral measure falling from his shoulders as he did so. “The need for my counsel is dwindling because talent is rising, Mireya. Your very existence is proof that soon, the judges – that was the old name for us, we who assess talent and give knowledge where it is necessary – [...]

Mireya’s hands shook, the orb cupped in her palms as she settled herself back onto the sofa, bringing her legs into a serpentine coil. Forgetting the sway of the ship, the sickness in her stomach, just watching the yellow veins wind over the globe. “You didn’t know, before you paid for me…You couldn’t have known [...]

Mireya knew she should just go back to her cabin, but there was too much noise at the bottom of the hull, the scent of sweat and musk and the unfamiliar crowded cells. Just rocking, endless rocking. Unsteady, the delicate ash-haired blonde wavers towards were Kintere stormed earlier, his slamming of doors hard to forget, [...]

“What’s wrong with your arm?” Trying to draw the conversation away from her, away from Kintere, away from this whole damned ship. Hauling herself up, hissing softly between her teeth at the pain in her ribs. Trying to find some common ground. Rhayd wrung his hands, pressing right thumb to left palm in a massaging [...]

They had sailed the following morning, on the first tide of the day out of Ckuien Penance. With so little time to reconcile themselves to the journey, Mireya found she was already missing the small, comfortable spaces of the Sword and Shield, and that she did not like the open ocean one bit. It turned [...]