Author: admin

The abbess was writhing, seething, spitting chunks of limestone upon the chancel. I looked into her eyes-eyes just like mine. Then, with her own tools, with hammer, with chisel- I struck. Right upon her stone heart. I was not exact as I had been with the Heartsore Weaver. This was an annihilation, and Aisling would…

“What about the Faithful Forester? She’s been dead decades.” Spring water slipped between my lips, choking me. “Are you such a monster that you would kill one of your own Diviners for an Omen nigh thirty years gone?” For the first time, emotion touched the abbess’s unflinching coolness. Her stone brow twisted, her eyes narrowing….

Swords and armor are nothing to stone. The Knight and the Moth THE END OF THE STORY We returned to where Traum’s most sanctified story, its most crafted lie, began. The tor. It had taken all day to get there. I was on horseback, holding tightly to Rory, and for once Fig cantered with urgency,…

I hated talk of gods. “What does your loom stone do?” I said, clipped. “I could slip my finger into the hole in the center of it. If the stone’s face was pointed outward, I would be transported-made invisible. I could jump through the walls of this cave. Travel twenty feet in the air. All…

Again the Weaver coughed, more injurious this time. Her body was falling apart. “To be a gargoyle…” she rasped, “is a very strange thing. The ones upon the tor do not tell the stories of who they are-indeed they hardly speak-I think, because they do not remember what it is to be human. Or maybe…

A moth. It fluttered to my face, so close its wings stirred my lashes, then withdrew, fluttering back down the tunnel from whence it had come. “Wait for Rory,” I told the gargoyle, and stole after it. The tunnel drew close around me, swallowing me down its throat, and I made myself small to fit,…

“Can’t hear anything.” Maude put a hand to her bandaged side and winced. “If you dragged me up that hill again for nothing-“ “All I hear is the ocean,” I snapped. Rory pulled me into the crook of his arm and stamped his palm over my lips. “Shhh. Listen.” I made a note to bite…

Benji sounded a little breathless. “Ever but visitors.” “Ever but visitors,” the crowd echoed. “Ever but visitors,” the gargoyle cheered. The five women reached for Benji’s tunic. From its collar, its sleeves, its bottom hem, they each pulled free a thread, then tied that thread to their ring fingers and brought their hands to their…

“Right as rain,” I snapped. I looked to Rory. And let out a sharp cry. I could see it, even in the dim light-even with water in my eyes. A massive dent in Rory’s breastplate. He gasped for air. “Keep your balance. There are pikes at the bottom of this pit.” I swore, then shouted…

“Look out below!” Benji didn’t jump. He traveled on the magical tide of the inkwell, appearing before us. Maude came after him, and Rory caught her, and she winced in pain. “It’s massive.” She peered at the walls around us. “It must have taken centuries for the sea to wear down all this rock.” “How…