Category: All These Broken Things
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Odrian woke with the dawn, clutching empty air and thoroughly resenting it. Canvas roof. Smoke in the air. War camp. He lay still for a moment, staring up at the sagging seam of the tent before sighing like a man personally betrayed by morning. “Traitor,” he muttered toward the sun. He swung his legs out…
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Alessia was going to set the tent on fire if Askarion didn’t let her up soon. She had been in bed for days, her ankle a throbbing mess of stitches and poultices. She was losing what was left of her godsdamned mind. Stella had taken to her role as “warden” with terrifying enthusiasm, threatening to…
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The morning light cut wrong through the canvas. Too sharp, too insistent. The kind of light that found wounds. Alessia had been awake for an hour, counting the water stains on the ceiling, watching the shadows shift while the bronze at her ankle throbbed in time with her pulse. Three years of the metal growing…
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Dionys pushed through the tent flap with the smell of salt and iron still clinging to him. Blood, not his own, dried stiff on his forearms and streaked across his chiton in dark, crusted lines. He moved directly to her cot without pausing to clean himself, dropping into a crouch at her side. “Marko went…
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The observation post reeked of fish oil and old rope, a slat-crusted shack perched on the breakwater’s edge where the wind cut through her chiton like it was trying to peel her skin off layer by layer. Alessia pressed against the rough timber, her ribs screaming in time with the surf, the shackle grinding against…
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“You’re swaying,” Dionys said, low enough that only Alessia heard it. He stepped closer, his shoulder brushing hers, blocking Lauthen’s view with his back. “Don’t fall here. Not in front of them.” He extended his forearm, horizontal and steady, not asking permission. “Take it. Or I carry you. Your choice, but we’re leaving.” His other…
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“The Formicari take the three berths,” Odrian said, his voice slicing through the council’s murmurs. He leaned over the map, tracking the charcoal marks she’d scratched into the vellum. “Aurelis, your shadows hit the third berth first. The currents are worst there, and if the cargo’s heavy enough to scrape bottom, they’ll be struggling to…
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Alessia limped into the council tent on a wave of whispers and stale sweat, her grey chiton scratching against Askarion’s fresh bandages. One hand was tucked into her belt, partly for stability, partly because she palmed a folding knife from the healers’ supply crate on her way out. Old habits. Her other hand hovered near…
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Aurelis didn’t announce himself. The tent flap shifted, and suddenly he was there. Alessia was propped against the bedroll, her fingers stained green from Patrian’s botany lessons, the silver signet clutched in her palm like a prayer bead. She didn’t flinch when she saw him. He took three steps into the tent, no more. Close…
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Odrian found Patrian outside the healer’s tent, his shoulders set and his face a mask of weary calculation. There was no theatrical flourish when he stepped forward, just the grim purpose of a king finally armed with a weapon he understood. “Moonless tide in three days,” he said, the words clipped and final. “Timber movements.…
Tiny Raven 