Is God comprehensible? To think of God is to comprehend…him? Her? Ever had the pronoun bedeviled me. Thus began my heresies. God, I had been taught, was all-encompassing. Why limit the infinite with the attribution of a singular sex? To discuss God, to treat of Godhood, to discuss Godliness, is to work purely within the bounds […]
I could not stop. The fear and flight kept my blood high, prevented me from too deep a meditation on what I had become. Even now, my limbs once again began to shake, the pain of my wounded shoulder seeped through, the thin scratch down my neck burnt like acid. The Inquisitor did not move. […]
“Dear heart.” Lord Valraven took another step into the room. “Is that really you?” “Papa–” At a run, Mariead caught her father in an embrace, a huff of breath taking the place of whatever words she might have intended. Sidelong, I looked to the lass, who stood with long fingers splayed over the tabletop, eyes […]
It took five strides to cover the steps of Valraven Manor. I knew it was five down to my bones, felt it seared into my heart, as I took the sixth step and crossed the threshold with my left leg, building speed with every footfall. I drove all that speed and swiftness into brute force […]
A massacre is hard work. Even a dirty fight gives you the rush, starts your heart, gets your palms itching for the next blow. But slaughter always outlasts the heat of battle. What follows is not cold; it’s numb. You’re no longer trying to survive; the fear fades, your nose gets used to the smell, […]
The crowd surged forward, bodies crushing in around me. The other penitent-priest, the Inquisitor’s hand-picked hunting hound, sprang onto the steps of the chapel and drew his sword in turn. “Loyal soldiers of the Church, to me!” he shouted. “Get fucking back, you pack of idiots,” Blake snarled, at the same time. “Run! Tell the […]
Wasn’t much by the way of seating. I sat with half my arse on a piece of unsplit firewood, used a larger log as a table. Sergeant Blake sat off to my left, as did all the rest of his lads, where I could keep an eye on them, and they could keep an eye […]
The lass in my head shivered and shut Her eyes, still as a statue. I felt Her reaching, stretching out for something. Had the wild urge to raise my hands. Held back from it. Instead I let Her stand stark and unreal against the harsh background, the edge of a rough wooden cottage, the pig […]
At the outer ring of the group of guards sat a bald man, wide and squat like a toad with stubble. He wore a Sergeant’s tunic over a shirt with no collar—but white, barbed chains were tattooed about his neck, like the chains of a seven-year Penitent. He heaved himself to his feet with a […]
Mud squished up under my feet as I stared, hands on her shoulders. Damp air was cold on my newly-bare face, and the skin felt too tight, taut, like a skull. The Inquisitor rode a white horse. Everything he and his horse wore was white, splashed with mud from the road north, tack and harness […]
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