I was tagged by, @asher-writes thanks!
My words are pain, panic, wander, light, and sky. This was a bit rough, I had to dig through several projects to find some of these words! Actually, each one of them ended up being from a separate project, which is cool too.
Mahesha had been all over these woods, along with Izare. He doubted there was an area he didn’t know within a five-mile radius of Lattencrest. But it didn’t seem to matter that day. Nothing looked familiar, and he could not move through the woods with his usual grace.
Instead he blundered and stumbled, branches raking against his face and tangling in his hair. At some points they even drew blood, shining drops of silver against the dark wood of the trees. But the cuts healed in an instant, as they always did, and Mahesha ignored the momentary flashes of pain, as he always had.
He did not think that the scent of blood and magic in the air might attract dangerous things.
Mahesha was nearing an abandoned hunting cabin when he heard the first snort behind him. He turned, and the beast was there – misshapen and ravenous. Most of it seemed to be a wolf, but there was boar too, in the long curving tusks, in the murderous look in its eyes.
It crouched low, growling, ready to charge, overlarge paws digging into the snow for purchase.
Izare was there, too, behind it and a little to the left. He held a bow, with an arrow already nocked. His eyes met Mahesha’s, and he froze.
Nelli shook off panic like a dog might shake off water. She changed her grip on her sword and thrust it back blade first. A gasp of surprise met the motion. The cord lost its bite and the boy stumbled back, holding both hands over a rapidly spreading blood stain at his abdomen.
Nelli watched him fall impassively. He had his chance. She only just had time to recover her breath before she had to stop a frenzied attack from a woman she could only imagine to be the boy’s mother. The woman attacked with a wild fury, but one tiny dagger could not be a match for the longer reach of a Marzjen blade.
The fight didn’t even last ten minutes.
Nelli stared down at the blue coral blade, sullied red for the first time since she had gotten it.
Kradhi stalked amongst the bodies, making sure they were all actually dead. She looked right at home there, covered in blood and mud and gore – a wild cat presiding proud over her kill.
Nelli shook her head slowly, and cleaned her blade on the grass. She didn’t mind the fighting, or the blood, but it was hard to imagine getting the same kind of fierce joy out of it that Kradhi did. No matter how much in doubt she is, she’d still definitely a Winterlander.
"Do you think something's happened?" Larkin asked.
"What could happen?" Miss Ardith responded. "He's a sorcerer, isn't he? Even a scrawny little thing like him should be able to confront a mere beast."
Giscard too, seemed uneasy. Still, he had to reluctantly agree. "It's too dark out now, and we don't even know where he went. To wander about looking for him would be foolish."
Larkin couldn't say why he felt so uneasy exactly. He hadn't even really invited Arwyn along, didn't really want him along, and didn't even particularly like him. But even so, he was a member of their journeying party. And he had been gone for some time. "Tomorrow, then. Tomorrow we'll look for him."
But it turns out they didn't need to do anything. The next day dawned to reveal Arwyn seated placidly of the table. It did not seem as if he had faced down a beast the previous night. His dark blue robes were spotless, his black hair was again neatly braided, his veil so clean it practically glowed in the sunlight.
“That’s not what I mean, as you well know.” Sasia glanced out the window a second time. The sun was just now showing itself through the leaves of the trees. Across the city, buildings were outlined in light as the sun hit their reflective gilding. The binding ceremony would not happen until after the sun began to set, when the old year had passed and the new year rose. It was an auspicious day for such a rite. Keril would not be the only one due for such a binding this day, but she was undoubtedly the most important.
Our friend is brave, but even she will be nervous on such a day. Nzul yawned, showing off fangs that gleamed like pearls. Anyone would be. The stories they tell of this Yvian…
“I’ve heard them too.” In truth, Sasia was not sure why Keril had agreed to wed Yvian. A binding ceremony was important, both politically and magically. As Keril’s abi, her personal mage, most of the work fell to Sasia. She had not seen Keril for more than a few moments since she had accepted the proposal. “Do you think her family is rushing this so much because they’re afraid she’ll change her mind?”
Nzul laughed. She’s done more damaging things in the past!
Yes, she had, and it always fell to Sasia to soothe the ruffled tempers. She sighed. “I should like a chance to speak with her about this, but she’ll be all day with her maids and I have my own duties to attend to.”
If Sasia were lax in those duties, it might be more than the most important day of Keril’s life – it would also be the last.
Genevieve studied her new home with what she hoped was casual indifference to Margherita's treatment. It was the biggest and emptiest place she'd ever seen. Across the river, the land was flat too, without much to break up the horizon. But it didn't seem as desolate as things did here. There was grass here, too, in patches of tan and green. But somehow there was a definite difference between grass and sky here versus grass and sky there, something that felt almost tangible, but which Genevieve could not not name.
Margherita could. "It's an absence," she said. "You get used to it." Margherita turned the rabbits over to cook more evenly. "The forest. It used to grow all the way to the bank of the river, but humans came. They burned the trees and salted the earth, and locked magic away with the power of their own blood. The land cries for the forest. I cry for it too, when I'm away too long."
"But I'm not a tamer… I've never even seen the forest! How could I feel it?"
"Everyone feels it, to some degree," said Margherita. "You'll either get used to it, or the weight of it will drive you back across the Meren."
Genevieve sat down next to the fire, on the opposite side to the two wolves. In the fading sunlight they looked not at all like dogs. All she could see was gleaming eyes and too many sharp white fangs. "Why did people ever cross the river to live here?"
The sense of emptiness was worse in the dark. Genevieve had never been conscious of being aware that things were around her before. She hadn't realized how comfortable the city was until coming to this strange desolate place. But she wouldn't give Margherita the satisfaction of seeing her run. Even more than keeping her contracts, even more than a chance to make her own life, she wanted to make Margherita eat her words about 'city girls'.
"Because there have always been people who can't see something without wanting to own it, and there have always been people who see emptiness not as a threat, but as something to fill." Those were the last words Margherita spoke that evening.
