Aia tells her tale to lords

Aia skewed her shoulders straight and twisted her mouth into a smile, though her heart fluttered like a tiny bird trapped in a snare.

“E-​gel-​ric!”

Read more...

Maire wakes a man

Egelric threw up his arms, and grabbed, and held on. Somehow he already knew he was no longer dreaming, but he meant to cling to the dream as tightly as to the girl. Too many times she had eluded him, waking him to run away, tormenting him with doors she slammed behind her, teasing him with echoes of her laughter down corridors he no longer knew.

Read more...

Alred makes a monument of a man

“It isn’t mine!”

The door Egelric had thrown open banged against the bookshelf only after his cry, serving as vehement punctuation.

Read more...

Eithne sees the mask of the monster

Eithne swayed on her feet, drunk with drowsiness, and laughing soundlessly like Liadan. With one hand she hung her weight from Cian’s shoulder, but with the other she tugged determinedly at his belt. It was a new game she had discovered during the night, and she was eager to play it again.

Read more...

Flann rushes out

Of course Osh had heard Paul’s prattling from as far as the road, and of course Paul had heard his father and announced their arrival beforehand.

Still, Flann found it queer that Osh should open the door himself and stroll directly in, as if they were still occupants of the big house and not guests — as if they had only stepped out for a walk, when in fact Flann had not stood in this hall since she had run away to be wed.

Read more...

Flann confesses

Flann had not anticipated how the missing cradle would chill her.

All these months it had stood before the image of a steep, gravelly bank, much like the one she had walked that windy night only two weeks before. In Osh’s painting it seemed the deed had been done. No one stood on the shore.

Read more...