#mythicfantasy

In all her living memory, across the endless ages, she'd never had a captive thought escape its thorny cages.

Her solemn task was not to guard, nor tend the thornbound seed. She watched the Keepers, every one, and tended every need.

So how was it that on one count one Briarheart was bare? No captive thought had ever gone, and yet one was not there.

"I sang the songs I always sing, as Keepers always do. I closed my eyes to hear it breathe, for just the count of two."

"It vanished and I don't know how. I'm sorry, Mistress Vole." But something heavy settled then inside the Mistress' soul.

She touched the corner of her eye. Her fingers came back red. "That's no excuse," she softly sighed, though fear filled her instead.

A doorway that waits. A moment that listens. A world that shifts when the hour turns strange.

From The Watch of Re‑Made Time.

Not every door is what it seems to be. Some are waiting.

In the Wovenverse, certain thresholds don’t open into rooms at all, but into moments that were changed. They listen. They remember. And sometimes, when the hour turns strange, they choose who may cross.

From The Watch of Re‑Made Time, Round Table Library.

🌩️ Something about the storm felt wrong. It came in like any other. But it wasn’t. 🌊

As the storm rolled in from the sea, a solitary figure stood on the cliffs overlooking the village below. The dark clouds hung above the earth like spilled ink spots on a sheet of parchment. The frail woman inched toward the swirling tempest as the wind swept across the rocky surface. Sporadic gusts bent the sparse grass flat while the crashing waves hammered the rocks below.

With a glance over the edge, the delicate figure witnessed the fishermen rushing about the docks, shouting over the rising gale as they fought to secure their boats. The woman brushed her sleeves as early raindrops slammed into the earth. She thrust her exposed arm into the nascent rainstorm.

As she waited for the rain, a small child stepped out of the hidden cavern hewn inside the mountain pass. With a brief glance along the path, she rushed to the summit and paused when she saw the stranger near the cliff’s edge. The child ducked down and peeked over the rock wall.

When lightning flashed across the horizon, the frail woman threw her hood back and spread her arms wide. A second later, raindrops fell from the black clouds, colliding with the woman’s skin. After several strained heartbeats, the bolt’s thunderclap rolled across the cliff like a herd of stampeding beasts. As another bolt pierced the sky, the child’s face rose, giving her a clear look at the figure.

The woman stood as the rain intensified and thunder moved through the craggy ground. The child’s fingertips dug into the rocky earth as she raised herself to her tiptoes. She stared out and watched the thunderstorm break around the stranger. While wind swept across the grass, it ignored the frail woman. However, with each passing moment, the woman’s appearance altered.

The child crept onto the summit. Her gaze fixed upon the woman whom the storm refused to touch. As she inched closer, the figure stepped toward the edge. The child’s eyes widened as she lunged forward, her hand reaching out to the strange woman. “Be careful, you’re going to fall!”

The stranger’s foot hovered over empty air, and she whirled around, her narrowing eyes focusing on the newcomer in the rain. She stormed across the ground, overshadowing the girl, a living mirror of the raging storm. “Identify yourself! Why are you lingering here? Don’t you realize the ferocity of what’s approaching and the devastation it will bring?!”

The child flinched, retreating half a step, her hand clutching her tattered and oversized cloak. She wiped the water off her face as she inched forward. “I’m a street urchin. And we’re a common sight in this town. But who are you that a storm itself steers clear of you? And weren’t you more fragile before you were pelted by the rain?”

The woman rose to her full height, further emphasizing the disparity in their sizes. She flowed across the rain-drenched earth and pulled the small girl off the ground and stared into her eyes with her own ragged gaze. “You’re not asking the questions.”

“My name’s Marin,” she said as her fingers probed at the grasp holding her off the rocky surface. “Are you a Storm Warden?”

“Don’t you know they’re extinct?”

“Their stories detailed how no one else could walk through storms such as this untouched...

If you enjoyed this excerpt, the full story is available on Patreon as well as the back catalogue.

The Rift is a mythic space born from fractures in the world— an unfinished realm where formless beings linger.

Modern technology is nothing but the evolution of ancient summoning, and every entity in TOMDOLLS Tales waits within the Rift to be called into reality.