Zuberan

It wasn’t a far walk, though I was uncomfortable at how close the explosions were. Every so often, a particularly loud one would shake the trees, clearing them of five thousand years worth of deviations from the animals I used to know. They scampered away, familiar but slightly off. They’d finally adapted back to a … Read moreAn End For Crows (Part 11)

Tane and the Regent had left us in the meantime, sliding back to whatever needed to be done among the ever more ragged ranks of the Crows that were left. It hurt that they left, but I was an adult and knew that they had their own jobs. Isaac’s office was in the basement, a … Read moreAn End For Crows (Part 10)

The Admiral burst into rasping laughter, and thumped an aged fist against the desk. “You want to summon your people’s hero? Isn’t he dead?” “We have enough pieces of him to make him again,” Jay said. I could feel, from this close, how the corruption inside of his flared up as he stoked it, teasing … Read moreAn End For Crows (Part 9)

The worm stopped moving after what felt like forever, and long after I felt safe standing next to Isaac. Something had stolen his soul and replaced it with grimness and darkness, and I couldn’t stay next to him for much longer. So it was gladly that when the gills of the great creature opened we … Read moreAn End For Crows (Part 8)

We sat on that hill for a long moment, staring at each other, face to face, and then he stepped forward, ignoring the clicking over almost a hundred guns (we had lost many in the battle for the Capital) and embraced me. He squeezed, and I wondered at the touch of actually human hands, and … Read moreAn End for Crows (Part 7)

Jay stepped over to the front of the car and waited. The distinctive noise of the Crow weapons (ever so slightly different from the Fey rifles, I’d gotten used to the difference and found the Crow’s woodpecker guns more comforting) came over the hill, and then noises of ricochets and softer things taking heavier hits. … Read moreAn End for Crows (Part 6)

Tane knelt down and gently picked up one of my crows and put them next to the others, and then ferried them all together. “Come on. You have to be back together. We don’t need a flock right now, we need you.” I didn’t want to be me. Being me was painful, being me meant … Read moreAn End for Crows (Part 5)

Someone was shaking me awake. Hands were clamped to my shoulders, and they hauled me off of the table. The crows that held my mind buzzed uncomfortably, unnerved at the sensation of the first memories buzzing through them, pounding like its own heart beat. I swallowed, and swallowed again, and again. The pain in my … Read moreAn End For Crows (Chapter 4)

We stopped just after midnight, when the shudders had stopped and replaced themselves with a cold numbness that stretched across my skin and down to what few feathery tufts that refused to remove themselves despite my best effort and a buzzing in the back of my head that made stringing together coherent thoughts difficult. Tane … Read moreAn End for Crows (Part 3)

USEC didn’t greet me when I opened my eyes. Nobody did. A bump woke me up. A distant engine was cranked up as high as it could go; the capital’s fleets of vehicles buzzed like the opening notes of a rock concert. The world was a hazy mash of shapes and colors and hostile things, … Read moreAn End For Crows (Part 2)