Fiction
The Ember and the Crown - Part 2
Rain slashed against the lacquered eaves of the Roseward Gate as the trio passed beneath its snarling gryphon sigils, the storm offering no kindness for returning exiles or outlawed mages. Drevril’s capital, Arlavorn, breathed with veiled menace. Market stalls remained shuttered, their canvas draped like corpses. Crimson banners snapped on parapets above, but beneath them, the scent of burning ink and alchemical ash stained the wind. Something sacred had been disturbed.
By Richard Bailey7 months ago in Chapters
The Ember and the Crown - Part 1
The summons arrived with the quiet weight of a blade unsheathed in darkness. Wrapped in scarlet vellum and sealed with the sun-crowned crest of Drevril, the parchment exuded an unnatural warmth, like paper left too close to flame. The sigil binding it glimmered faintly with threads of memory-ink, a craftwork so precise that even Elira, standing several feet away in the shadowed inn loft, could feel the thrum of imitation power.
By Richard Bailey7 months ago in Chapters
Businesswoman Chapter 172
In all her twenty-nine years, Loreen esteemed the words of her elders. Suzanna Boers, sixty-two, had built a fortune selling the oil that goes in hot oil treatments. The two business titans sat down in Suzanna’s office. Everything sparkled as glass covered most of the surfaces.
By Skyler Saunders7 months ago in Chapters
My Neighbor’s Cat Thinks I’m Its Owner Now
It started with a meow. A single, innocent meow. At the time, I didn’t realize that meow was a legal contract in cat law, binding me for life to an arrangement I never agreed to. If I had, I might’ve shut my window, moved to another city, or learned how to meow back in a way that screamed, “Wrong house, furry overlord.”
By shittu adeola7 months ago in Chapters
Businesswoman Chapter 171
After finishing another course, Loreen took it upon herself to take a spin in one of her muscle cars. The need for speed kept calling her and she wanted to kick up dust and rev and engine to its capacity. She chose a Fuerza Cerro this time. With her own private track, she could race around the loop at speeds approaching two hundred miles an hour. Behind the wheel, she just knew that she would be freed from the constraints of laying out lesson plans and actually teaching courses. While she made a left turn, the thoughts of sketching out an idea for her classes continued to pervade her consciousness.
By Skyler Saunders7 months ago in Chapters
Shadows Over Soravin - Part 5
The once-proud ruin, hollowed halls of learning and vaults of buried arcanum, lay under a bruised sky. Ash still curled from fissures where forgotten magic had been disturbed, and the rain that fell was thick, laced with the taint of alchemical run-off, slicking the blackened stones and whispering like dying words into the cracks. The vault was gone. Collapsed. But its echoes still throbbed in the bones of the city.
By Richard Bailey7 months ago in Chapters
Businesswoman Chapter 170
When Loreen received the text message she trembled with joy. She looked at the figures on the screen. Eight figures reflected from her phone. The amount of time she put into those courses kept her together. She wanted to burst out of her bed and stomp all over it. She refrained. Air expelled from her lungs.
By Skyler Saunders7 months ago in Chapters
Shadows Over Soravin - Part 4
The descent felt like stepping into the marrow of a buried god. No light guided them, only memory. Thin lines of crystalline veinwork pulsed faintly along the vault walls, casting a sickly indigo shimmer over the steps. With every touch of a boot to stone, fragmented echoes burst outward, moments frozen in time, hazy and sharp in equal measure. Vaelin saw a gloved hand dripping with someone else’s blood. Elira glimpsed a page torn from a sigil codex, set aflame before the eyes of a weeping child. And Tovik… Tovik flinched at a laugh that sounded too much like his own, coming from a voice behind a mask.
By Richard Bailey7 months ago in Chapters
Busineswoman Chapter 169
Lisa Conway looked at her portfolio. Her list of businesses and their bottom lines increased tenfold after her talks and help with businesses around Delaware. Something seemed to be amiss, however. She looked at her 501 (c) (3) and noticed that donations had decreased. Her brow furrowed. She scrolled the online account and sought after the main cause of this decline.
By Skyler Saunders7 months ago in Chapters
