#draevum

Nobody remembers me. I don’t mean that people who once knew me have forgotten me. It’s worse than that. I mean that people can’t form memories of me. I just exist at the edge of everyone’s attention, never noticed or remembered or thought about beyond a fleeting glimpse of awareness. My mother probably doesn’t even recall that she has a daughter. Maybe it’s better that way. I learned early on not…

I have spent my whole life in the company of my mother’s kindred. Of all the life in the aerie, only the plants do not share her lineage. They are, instead, kindred of her brother Krrgotst, for base plants would not survive up here, pressed against the ceiling and eternally tousled by the winds that flow through the aerie all day and night, stirred by the presence of Mother’s children.

Mother…

The story goes that Queen Euphonia, the ninth queen was so beautiful and so wise that each of Vanaprimax’s children attempted to seduce her. They did so not because of their father’s directive, but because of her incredible allure, which transcended that of any human they had witnessed before.

Onosang, who watched her, at first, from afar, fell in love with the way she observed the world around…

A tear runs down my nose and falls from the tip before I can reach up to wipe it away. I blink, looking upward in hopes that it will forestall more tears. The first drops right into the mixture I’m stirring on my stove. No matter. Such a small amount of salt and water shouldn’t disturb it. This isn’t the important stuff, anyway. This will just help to ease his joint pain.

The creme needs to…

“He will be here soon,” Ama said. She tried to remain calm. I remember that. But her voice had that slight quaver she gets when she’s anxious and excited, and her hands shook with a tremble greater than that inspired by her age as she set out the wine and fruit.

My mother took my hand in hers, her fingers tightening around mine, constricting them. In my memory of that moment, I can hear her heart…

I apologize for the fact that this does not continue Shadows, but I wanted to let this idea free from my mind before it escaped me.

For a time, Ytha felt only the joyful bliss of love. Den looked at her with his eyes full of something she had never expected to experience, but it was what they lacked that drew her closer and closer to him. He showed no fear, no anger, no hatred, no disgust — he…

How Do You Know?

“Did we do the right thing?” Telal asks

He has no real reason to visit me, other than to ask her that question. I haven’t seen him at all for the past week. I suspect he has been avoiding me. I certainly haven’t sought him out.

He has no reason to be awake this early, either, but neither do I, when it comes to that. The morning light has only just begun to suffuse the air.

“We did,” I reply,…

This immediately follows Toward the City I originally meant to publish it the next day, but somehow I managed to forget.

I have no cloth to cover my face, and Garth doesn’t provide me with one. The smell is unpleasant, to say the least. I bring my hood around my face and breath through that. It barely helps, but it does help. I worry about the food in my pack. The smell is so strong that I worry…