Departure

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It’s nothing, Isabel tells herself. It’s a traveler’s tale, embellished with every telling until it’s unrecognizable as the original story. An entire village did not turn to metal overnight. 

She’ll believe that anyone who chanced to be awake last night saw the red star fall. It had been bright as a jewel, burning like a distant bonfire through the sky of this world and of the next. But the rest? It would require a ritual from the old legends, a coven of mages made immortal by their own power, the sacrifice of dozens of innocents. The next part of the story would involve a holy warrior of the church of Alcos, in enchanted armor that shone like the sun and a sword that could cut through both flesh and lies, riding a winged steed into the place of their power. 

Emryn Marner himself doesn’t seem to believe it. He eats his pie like a starving man—all men his age are starving—and doesn’t bring it up again. He and Berend take the tub down to the gutter and dump out the dirty water, and then he retreats to his room with his books. “There’s an exam next week,” he explains. “Though if the world’s ending, maybe I’ll get to miss it.” 

“When I was a boy, my teacher said that one of the hells was just endless written exams, over and over, for all eternity,” says Berend. 

Continue reading “The Book of the New Moon Door: Part Two, Chapter Twenty” →