HaltWrite

49: Marry Me

“...but I cannot marry you.”

Mydea took a moment to drink from her cup, before setting it down on the table between them. They had become acquainted whilst he masq...

48: Will You…

“Let nothing delay your return home,” Mydea read aloud from her father’s notebook. “Steelwing returned to us riderless this morning. We are scouring the paths to Aigis in search. Only one m...

47: And Murder

Aspyr could admit that his prisoner—pale like moonlit snow—was beautiful to behold. Not as eye-catching as the Empress perhaps, but she did not have the benefit of generations of selective bree...

46: Of Intrigue…

It was, in Alcy’s opinion, a great inconvenience that Her solar was located high up in the Starlight Tower, while Her own bedchamber was in another palace entirely. Its platinum-tinted round wind...

45: Handbook...

In the looking glass Mydea found not her own visage, but that of her sister’s. “Chalsi, please tell me this wasn’t made possible by another favor from a friend,” she chided, hands on her hi...

44: The Ladies (2)

The Imperial Court of Her Highness was bedecked in even greater splendor for the occasion, and the normally spacious hall was filled to the brim as every man, woman and child who could finagle entr...

43: The Ladies... (Part 1)

Prince Jaeson's public arrival in the Imperial City set the guests of the Seraglio into a frenzy. Even the likes of the shy Lady Lanna was exerting considerable effort to stand out and lea...

42: Ball (Part 5)

The night was a flurry of drinks, dances, and dresses to Mydea. Before long the midnight bells tolled and some of the stoneborn retired to their rooms—Prince Pelias most notable among them—thin...

01: Call to Adventure

Chapter 1: Call to Adventure

Hammer.

With a thought, Syrus’ skill activated, and the blows came down on his hundredth sword one after the other, a rhythmic b...

41: Ball (Part 4)

There was another stir in the crowd, smaller than Mydea’s entrance had caused, but still noticeable. Atop the grand staircase and beneath the brightly lit chandeliers was a woman dressed in a sli...

40: Ball (Part 3)

The carriage carried only herself towards the Mirage—a two-storied palace painted in a vibrant blue hue, its silhouette gleaming from the light of the full moon. Were this a normal banquet, a wom...

39: Ball (Part 2)

The afternoon of the Empress’ masquerade found the Seraglio, normally vibrant with the chatter of ladies, suddenly silent of schemes. Even the lordlings courting the skyborn were sequestered away...

38: Ball (Part 1)

Barely a day had passed before an imperial messenger—a black Everbloom cattle dog with a perfumed piece of parchment attached to his neck—delivered Mydea’s official invitation to the Empress�...

33: Queue... (Part 4)

The Starlight Tower and the Imperial Court it jutted out from was no sprawling palace, and could be considered one of the smaller palaces in terms of size, though its spire dwarfed all others in he...

32: Queue... (Part 3)

When the hystor had been seen to, Tomas set down his cup of tea. “Disappointment is etched into your face. No luck?”

“More than I feared, but less than I hoped for,” Mydea said. “I ...

37: Raid... (Part 4)

League upon league of snowy fields and rolling hills disappeared behind them over the next two days. Despite the looming threat the warbands posed, the soilborn remained to tend to the land, watchi...

36: Raid... (Part 3)

As they camped at Jayderest, their numbers had swelled to over two hundred mounted mages across twenty lances. Nearly a quarter of their host was winged too, which was more than one might expect fr...

35: Raid... (Part 2)

“Nomos has received the sacrifice, Lord Aspyr,” Hystor Theios declared, arms deep in the blood, bone and guts of a firstborn lamb.

Aspyr nodded in acknowledgment, putting pressure on his ...

34: Raid... (Part 1)

The second daybreak after Mydea’s departure found Aspyr in his glasshouse, the winds of winter and a slow, creeping hoarfrost warded off by the warming runes. His valet, Jorgan, was with him as u...

31: Queue... (Part 2)

She could feel scorching gazes on her as they entered the Seraglio proper, but she paid the other girls no mind. After Prince Jaeson arrived, her meetings with Tomas would fade from their memory as...

30: Queue... (Part 1)

Even had Mydea not known that the Imperial City now floated within the Everbloom’s domain, the pleasant weather during winter was telling in and of itself. It was said that the magic which kept t...

29: Mask... (part 2)

Boxed in by stone cloisters and passages, the garth Lady Lara had allowed Mydea to use was one of the better gardens in the Seraglio, known for its fine marble sculpting of Syla Stormsong and her h...

28: Mask... (Part 1)

Mydea poured a measure of an Edenian literati’s powdered tongue over her father’s notebook, enough to translate a few lines at most. The greatest variations in using translation spells resulted...

27: Of Our Own (Part 3)

It is better to settle with debtors than death, for one will always collect. Mydea sat with Tomas and Vivyan in one of the balconies of the Seraglio with a splendid view of the gardens below.

26: Of Our Own (Part 2)

When she stepped back into the crowd, she found herself besides Prince Cleo, dressed as he always was in his strange tunic. Did the man have no other clothes?

“So you befriend your enemy,�...

25: Of Our Own (Part 1)

The High Temple looked more like a sculpted mountain than stacked stones to Mydea. With a shy, new moon in the sky and Aelisium’s own luminance dimmed in deference to Ygeia’s holy night, there ...

24: Archive... (Part 3)

Their ride stopped before the great glass dome of the Archive, and Tomas opened the door for them. The only entrance to that marble edifice was a pair of bronze doors with a dozen languages all say...

23: Archive... (Part 2)

Tomas’ carriage was an unassuming thing by the gates of the Seraglio, unmarked and directed by a plain-looking coachman dressed without spectacle. She’d asked it of him, but Mydea found her cir...

22: Archive... (Part 1)

Her plans had not survived a single day of Aelisum, but one adjusted or was annihilated, and Mydea rather enjoyed being alive.

When she returned to her room after tea with Princess Mirah—wh...

21: Stands for Trouble (Part 3)

“He fostered with your father, didn’t he?” Pudgy Sara asked Miryam as she served herself another helping of cake. “What’s Prince Jaeson like? Is he handsome?” Lanna nodded demurely.