The thick forest made passage difficult, as did the exhaustion that had already drained my arms, and the black sorrow that threatened to overwhelm my heart.I couldn’t think about what had happened, and I couldn’t think of anything else. When my mind tried to speculate on what might be happening b...
They’d wandered off to forage again, in spite of the more than adequate supply of food we’d left them in the stable. It wasn’t snowing yet, but the air had the heavy feel of an approaching storm, and I wasn’t prepared to lose the horses if it came during the night. I made the stalls as comfortabl...
She reminded herself again that she needed to have something more suitable made to cover her nightgown during these late-night visits. It wasn’t a question of the cost, but of getting up the nerve to approach the seamstress. Or anyone. Maggie didn’t...
Instead, we found the place in turmoil. People leaned out from the windows of their stone-walled houses at the outskirts of town, yelling in Cressian accents so thick I found it hard to understand what they were saying. Others ran from door to door, spreading news, gathering a crowd that headed t...
Not a grand plan for my life, and not the hourly breakdown that usually gave me a sense of control when everything became unmanageable. But it was a starting point, and that was all I needed. I would take Zinian’s advice and keep to myself. It might not be exciting, but Auphel would keep me compa...
This is torture. Someone once told me that fear of the unknown is a waste of energy, that reality never lives up to the horror that we expect. I wish I believed it. That would mean the hard part is almost over. But as I sit here waiting for the future to knock at the door,...