David White
Stories
4
Chapters
1,771
Words
1.0 K
Comments
0
Reading
5 m
-
The war for the indigo throne was over. A cold conflict until the very last moment, eight elders of the Raging Heaven Cult had clashed in lethal violence - every one of them reaching for that empty seat, and its dominion over the beating heart of the free Mediterranean. Eight Tyrants had gambled everything on that prize, knowing only one of them would emerge victorious to claim it. Yet in the end, all eight of them had lost. In his final moments, Ptolemy Resolved had eviscerated all seven of his rivals…-
92 •
-
-
The fight was ours to end. I could see it in their eyes and feel it in their hearts. It was arrogant of me to think it, absurdly so, but the truth of it was plainly so. These men and women - these impossible glories - were breaking apart, their hearts and minds steadily unraveling. The more we stripped away from them the quicker that they scattered. Sol and I drove them back, clashing with such ferocity that our bones began to crack in spite of the fortifying ichor burning in our blood. It was a…
-
92 •
-
-
The children of Helen were still transfixed by the stark pillar of light bisecting the earth and skies when the tragedies began. Across the Free Mediterranean, from the furthest colonies of the cardinal reaches - southernmost Egypt, easternmost Anatolia, northernmost Thracia, and westernmost Alikos - to the beating heart of ancestral Peloponnesia, the favored heroes of the Tragic Muse Melpomene collapsed in screaming fits. Some were amongst peers, whose best efforts could not soothe their agony, and…
-
92 •
-
-
Violence told a story. This I’d known for my entire life. My time outside the Rosy Dawn had challenged countless other preconceptions, but this one it had only reinforced. It was only in the heat of our most violent moments that we bared our hearts to one another in full. Not because we desired it, necessarily, but because we had no other choice. Every day of my life had hammered that point deeper home. Even this day. We exchanged discourse with our broken Heroes while the Sanctuary City fell, and that…
-
92 •
-
-
The spear plunged straight through his heart, yet it hardly hurt at all. The Scarlet Oracle’s eyes burned scarlet, glaring into his, and the world spun around him. Scythas was flung, fell, and skipped across marble like a stone over still water. The tumble hurt worse than the stab. Scythas propped himself up on a scraped and bleeding elbow, prodding at the wound in his chest. Or rather, prodding the place where the wound should have been. Prodding with fingers that should have been longer. Panic stabbed…
-
92 •
-
-
Their feud was ancient. With their finest days so many years behind them, it was easy for an outsider to forget that the elders of the Raging Heaven Cult had once been the hands that shaped the free world. The fact that they could be called elders at all, each one marked by the same indigo brush, was itself a damning sign of their decline. They had been unique existences once. They had been triumphant, and terrible. Even before the high bastard of the Raging Heaven Cult had stolen them from their…
-
92 •
-
-
When the Despoiled Queen of the Amazons let fly her blind arrow, starry night seeped through the skies above the City of Olympia and beyond it. For those unfortunate enough to still be in the city, it was an instantaneous shift. For those that had taken the Raging Heaven Cult’s earlier unrest for the warning that it was, fleeing the city with their most valuable possessions bundled up in carts and carried on their backs, the sunset lights were ripped away like a tablecloth to reveal the dark heavens…
-
92 •
-
-
I watched the dawn break over scarlet waves. The sinful tang of sacred wine coated my tongue. Four years old. I was so small that holding my cup with both hands was a necessity as much as it was an act of reverence, the wide-rimmed The kykeon burned, branding my throat and searing my insides as I swallowed it down. I blinked rapidly, trying to dispel the sudden bleeding of the rosy-fingered dawn. Each time I opened my eyes the effect was worse than before. I swayed, and the next gentle wave nearly…
-
92 •
-
-
The mask settled with its painted features facing up, angled so that the distraught woman seemed to wail up at its owner. Griffon stared at it in numb despair. We were out of time. Scythas appeared in our path, his long hair whipping in the wind. His passage through the storm crown was written all across his frame. Thin, branching scars covered his visible skin, raw red remnants of tribulation wrath. His grass-green cult attire was drenched by blood and rainwater, torn in so many places it hardly looked…
-
92 •
-
-
The first instant nearly killed us. Polyzalus was the Rein-Holder, and he had proven that epithet well-earned when Dymas confronted him. Unspoken, yet plainly implied, was the fact that a charioteer only needed one hand to hold his reins. The other hand carried his whip. Stripped of half his dominion and challenged in his own throne of power, the Tyrant still moved faster than any of his peers. I didn’t need to look back to feel the dread heat of his rising hatred. I could feel it on my back and in my…
-
92 •
-
- Previous 1 2 3 … 178 Next
