The cry came from the underbrush below a giant oak. Jordan set down the basket of magical plant clippings he’d collected and crept closer, pulling the hood of his cloak away from his face. Distant clicks and caws pierced through the rustling trees, but Jordan focused on the tiny cry.
He scanned the area
I clutch the chest of stardust, staring at the space battle raging above. My crew on the Nebula is almost overwhelmed by Nova Alliance soldiers, even with the space-kraken crumpling their boarding vessel in its tentacles.
Breathless, I scoop up a handful of the glittering stardust, heedless of the blood on my skin
“Well, I’m off. You sure you’ll be all right?” Edwin paused at the door, smoothing his light blue beard. Its color reminded me of cryfina, a multifunctional, potent faerie poison that I’d been itching to get my hands on for ages. You could use it as a hair cream, a deadly weapon, or to
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I check my star-compass and adjust the Nebula’s course, following the needle toward a small, oddly shaped moon. The double suns to our stern stretch my shadows across the deck as I lean around the mainsail to see. At first, stardust seems to glow around the rock, but as we approach,
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The years haven’t been kind, but—Grete adjusted the eyepatch, making sure it didn’t ride on her cheekbone—kinder than I deserve. She glanced out the grimy window to the alley below.
“Oh, Schatzi, is that scar bothering you again?” Cook dipped her finger into a tin of salve.
Grete shrunk back, wrinkling her nose.
Today was yet another day her curse might lift—and Iris couldn’t let it.
She lay in bed, staring at the ceiling as waves of Priam’s love reached out from his wing of her castle. His affection buffeted like a breeze, twining around her limbs—and tearing into her beast-curse, the curse that
The wood bundle tumbled from Azarel’s grasp and scattered in the snow as Reuel shoved his muzzle into the boy’s face.
“All right, Reuel,” Azarel said. He’d been distracted for merely a moment, checking the sky to see if he could catch a glimpse of the majestic griffons said to make their aerie
Avia stuck one end of her staff in the dirt as she pushed off with her feet and swung around. When she landed, she back flipped before cartwheeling to her staff and pulling it from the ground. After a few twirls, she dropped to one knee and spun her staff to land across her
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“A bard here sells stardust?” I tug my top hat low and flip up my collar, adjusting my oxygen mask as I scan the dock.
Mister Kieffer drops from the rope ladder hanging from the Nebula’s railing. “Aye.” Maskless, he’s only a little breathless in the oxygenless Holuvian atmosphere.
It’s risky to let a prisoner
Jessmina had faced tough crowds before, but a squadron of war-torn soldiers? That just felt unfair. She loitered at the bar, though—unfortunately—drinking on the job wasn’t allowed.
She sighed glumly at her situation. Outside, gray gloom and swirling snow. Inside, a table full of scowling warriors with rifles strapped across their backs.
Askos looked too quiet to be the home of a murderer. Perched on a shady hill overlooking the nestled cottages, Tula unrolled her seaweed parchment and gripped her squid-ink quill. Below her, a man sat by a stream fishing, a broad-rimmed hat sloped over his eyes. Humans harvest fish in fresh water, she wrote,
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The prisoner still refuses to talk.
Hands clasped behind my back, I pace my cabin. Shutters dim the starlight lanterns on my desk, but the wide, paned window reveals the sparkling view of a myriad of stars to our stern. I can’t bring myself to pull the blinds, lest I miss some glimpse of pursuit.
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