Fall From Grace, Chapter Eight
The fall would take thirty-nine seconds. Long before he took his vows, Sadik had been walking patrol along the hard light crenellations of Acheron’s walls, watching the red rock canyons through the heat of the day. Someone had bumped his shoulder....
Paper Wings, Chapter Seven
Ben did not go back to class. On the way to AP Lit, he started to imagine how everyone would stare at him as soon as he opened the door. He pictured to himself how they would stop and pause, how the room would fall unnaturally silent, how the...
Paper Wings, Chapter Five
Ben killed time. First of all, he went back home, and this took almost an hour. He avoided the main roads as much as possible, taking shortcuts through a network of side streets and adjacent neighborhoods. By the time he actually reached his house,...
Cherries and Berries
Chapter One: Cherries Red woke up, feeling uncertain. It was late in the morning. They had clearly slept through their alarm. Sunlight skittered through the crooked blinds, falling in shafts along the carpet of Nancy’s room, giving a...
Fall From Grace, Chapter Seventeen
The bodies were piled high. Due to the sheer quantity of dead, it was difficult for Sadik to identify any one soul. Some had lost their heads, while others had been sliced in half. There were lacerations, sunbeam scores, pulped skulls, dented chests,...
Fall From Grace, Chapter Sixteen
Sadik prowled through the darkness. The tunnel was low and narrow. Exactly as he remembered. The chilly air, the smell of old stone, the bouncing echo of his sandals, even the wordless pressure of a palace hanging above his head. He walked the tunnels...
Fall From Grace, Chapter Fourteen
“Thank you for coming,” Sadik said. He could see six faces in the candlelight. Amira stood to his left, crossing her muscular arms across her chest. Haakon preened his feathers with a few swings of his beak. Yasmin crouched beneath the wooden shrine...
Fall From Grace, Chapter Fifteen
The river of blood stretched through the darkness. It was different than water. Thicker. Heavier. When it crashed against the walls, it did not make the natural sound of a stream. There were gurgles and thrums, constant sloshing heaves. Every surface...
Fall From Grace, Chapter Thirty Two
Thirty nine seconds. He had spent most of his life watching the gods fall from the heavens—soaring through the sky, breaking the seed, emerging through the wood and jelly into the fray of battle. So often, it had been Rushan and Ilios, fighting...
Fall From Grace, Chapter Twenty Three
“Goddess, where are we going?" The storm drain was small, narrow, and winding. Mud sucked at every footstep, thick and wet, while vermin scurried through every corner, their eyes glimmering in the dark. The weight of a city pressed above their...
Fall From Grace, Chapter Twenty Eight
_The conflict is tenuous._ In the middle of the hippodrome, there was a low wall cutting through the dirt, called a spina, whose purpose was to separate the racing tracks. Next to this wall, a large, wooden table was sheltered beneath a canopy of...
Fall From Grace, Chapter Twenty Two
“Thank you for coming," Sadik said. He could see many faces in the candlelight. Amira stood at his side, picking her teeth with a finger. Yasmin calibrated the hologram below the shrine, while Haakon preened the remnants of his feathers. To the right,...