The queen gave them more than a day. She put them up in her keep. People had made a fuss about Armitage until Geneve stared them down. She didn’t know what to say, so settled for glaring. Rumors spread about the Adept who’d cut down a Champion, so the glare was enough. Armitage said he thought it funny but didn’t laugh. He watched Sight of Day a lot and spent time with the Feybrind when he thought no one was looking. Geneve needed answers. She left the castle alone, on foot. No one had seen Tristan, and she feared him dead, especially after Beck and Fidget were brought to the castle stables. Her weary feet led her through Ravenswall. Geneve wore no armor. She couldn’t stand the golden sun’s weight today. She carried a black sash with five gold bars. Read More …

When Nicolette fell, so did Meriwether’s hands. The compulsion to not speak was gone. He scrambled to his feet. You saw the divine. Geneve brought the Storm. She beat a Champion, blade on blade, and saved, like, everyone. She knelt in a crumpled huddle beside Israel. The pool of red beneath the Knight didn’t grow. He was well dead, so Meriwether didn’t go there.  He found himself by Vertiline’s side. Blood still flowed from her arm. How she was still alive was a mystery. Maybe the Chevalier was too ornery to give up. He yanked off his belt, then worried the buckles on her greaves. The metal was twisted, the cut edge melted as if a great heat passed through it, but nothing burnt the flesh beneath. Tresward mystic Smithsteel shit. Ignore it. He lashed his belt around Vertiline’s arm. She stirred, Read More …

Geneve’s eyes snapped open, breath dragging through her chest. Her body felt raw, her mind bloody. Memory after memory snicked into place, pieces of a puzzle, fragments of a person, held apart from the rest of her for thirteen years. Each one hit with the force of a punch. Israel is my father. Vertiline knew. My mother sold me. She stood on weary legs. The witch Nicolette faced Meriwether. He held Geneve’s borrowed steel with trembling arms. She could see the fear in him, burning like a bonfire. Terrible, and wonderful, that he would bring his beautiful, fragile self between her and a demon. Geneve stepped to his side as she’d been taught. Cophine’s third stanza, for closing distance. She took the sword from Meriwether, feeling a gentle strength in her hands. A feeling she’d never had before because she’d always been Read More …