I savor the moment as our cannons fire on the bustling trade ring. The void of space swallows any sound as red flashes shoot from our guns and streak for the alliance’s heart. The time for my vengeance has come at last.
The blast turns the huge ring-shaped trade station into space dust
“I need a wand.”
Exeter, the elderly wandmaker, squinted through his thick glasses at his visitor.
This young man was one of those university types: tall, sandy hair combed to the side, dark eyes, worn robe of cornflower blue with the hood pulled up. Very eager and very naive.
“Are you
The bullet whistled and bit.
Roland Chadwick, Deputy U.S. Marshal, pressed a scarred hand against his blood-soaked shirt and half collapsed against the hotel’s cellar stairwell. Gunshots resounded outside where a gang of hired guns patrolled the frontier town’s streets with revolvers drawn.
The marshal stumbled down to the bottom step, where gaslight illuminated
“No, no.” The High Wizard flicked his hand as if a royal command was a mere annoyance. “I must stay here. If you fail, I’ll need to protect the castle.”
Brandt scowled. He might be the youngest son, but that made him no less a prince. He expected compliance. But High Wizard Eldred acted as
The Veil between worlds smells like overripe fruit, a deep purple scent. Cloying. Decaying. Bruised.
The sanitized atmospheres of living worlds lack the depth and complexity of abandoned realms. They never smell like the Veil, suffused with the scintillating aroma of death.
I breathe it deeply.
Invigorating.
Its heavens, ever-clouded. Its ground
In four minutes, I’ll be dead.
I didn’t plan to go down like this, but you know what they say: Make plans or don’t make plans, God hocks a loogie in your face regardless. So here I am, dripping with holy spit in Jackson Square. Here I am with a splitting headache
So many rats.
Mayor Osveld sidestepped a chittering swarm as he hurried down the cobbled streets of Hamelin. Children flocked, picking up the creatures and tossing them back into the gutters or at each other, laughing. Children and rats. The two main commodities of this stinking town.
He turned into a doorway and sprinted
“Tell us how y’all got that shiner, Cap?” Private Cordone’s voice crackled over the comms. I couldn’t remember his full name, Something Something Cordone IV.
I shook my head and closed my thermos, suppressing a sigh. Ever since I’d reported for duty with a black eye, the squad hadn’t been able to
Eighty bucks seemed like a lot, but it was for Gerald’s thirtieth birthday, so I clicked “confirm” before I could regret those eighty dollars—which turned out to be $97.89 after shipping and tax. I was already on the receipt page when I started to worry how legitimate it was.
Thankfully,
Any ship on approach gets to see the giant ring I call home. It’s a beautiful structure, gleaming brightly against the backdrop of space. Great place to live, but honestly—a circle is the worst when you’re trying to evade someone who wants to space you.
Robyn whipped around a corner. She tried to activate her comms
Judy Suarez lit a cigarette and took a drag. Against her left shoulder she cradled a landline desk phone. In her right hand she clenched a screenplay lacerated with pen slashes.
“Hemingway once said to write drunk and edit sober. Honey, you should be writing sober.”
The screenwriter on the other end of the line said
Through closed eyelids, Magister Calysma watched the silvery-blue energy pulse around her as it filled the room with the sharp smell of raw magic. Perched on a pyramid of velvet cushions, she monitored activities across the kingdom. Set in the white marble walls were dozens of quartz crystals, each the size of her head,
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