David White
Stories
4
Chapters
1,771
Words
1.0 K
Comments
0
Reading
5 m
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I collapsed onto my back in the sand, breathing heavily. My body ached fiercely, satisfying as it throbbed. I ran my tongue over my bottom lip and prodded the split flesh. Sol had given it to me good with the first punch, I’d allow him that much. Of course, I’d given him twice as much in return. I swallowed down blood and saliva, stretched my arms over my head and sighed as tension unwound from my body along with my soul. “I think I needed that,” I said to the cloudless sky above. “Thank…-
92 •
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Having aired his frustration, Griffon seemed to shake the worst of his foul mood. Whether it was relief after admitting it, or irritation with himself for letting it show so clearly, he throttled his violent intent and restrained himself to his usual provocations. We both took a dip in the Ionian, and then while we waited for Scythas to secure us a ship we spread the map out on the sand and discussed the task ahead. “Bakkhos lived a full life, if nothing else at all,” I marveled, tracing connecting…
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92 •
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Olympia‘s western dock town was as I remembered it, though it felt downright decrepit after weeks spent in the grandest city in the free Mediterranean. Stout wooden constructions were the standard out here, no amethyst-veined marble or towering bronze doors. It was refreshing, in a way. The beaches were teaming with fishmongers and their patrons, a cool breeze of waning winter offset by the cheerful warmth of unclouded sun. The port’s rubble mound breakwater could be seen from a respectable distance,…
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92 •
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Anastasia‘s shadow pulled away deliberately from mine beneath the wood-carved table, an active separation that was impossible to see and nearly impossible to feel. I almost hadn’t noticed it at all, the sensation for some reason so much deeper now than the last time I remembered feeling it that I’d almost mistaken it for something else entirely. If Anastasia’s eyes hadn’t given her away, smoldering flames flickering in response to Griffon‘s silent message, I might have dismissed it as a remnant…
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92 •
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I leaned back. Six Heroic cultivators crowded around the table alongside Sol and I. They had been at the furthest edges of the room when the story began, but now each of them leaned forward on elbows and crossed arms to get as close to the fading papyrus as they could. In the dull silence that followed the story Chilon had gifted me, the world seemed to lose a certain quality that I hadn’t known it possessed before. Without the warmth of heroic glory suffusing the air, each breath felt colder in my…
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92 •
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