Saint Victor the Benevolent. The heroine of each tale spun from a bitter mother's lips.

He is watching you, they say. Victor the Benevolent sees each time you swipe a coin from father's satchel, hears every word in the lies you tell to plead your case. Victor the Benevolent knows all, the mothers say. And he will not forgive another misbehavior.

Looking at Saint Victor the Benevolent now, I star...

Inked seemingly from head to toe, the man in front of her had a wickedly intense gaze from which she could not tear away.

"What does that one mean?"

She tilted her head toward his forearm, painted with the intricacies of a tarot card. She knew nothing about those.

"The Wheel. Opportunity for fortune and... the like."

"Do you have any of its companions on you?"

He nodded almost imperceptibly...

In the golden night, the forest creatures lie in wait. They tuck their tails and fold in their wings, patient.

In the golden night, the trees cease their rustling. They quiet their leaves and seal up their trunks, patient.

In the golden night, the moon softens her glow. She illuminates the dark and keeps life at bay, patient.

In the golden night, the sun waits for his chance to rise again. He t...

"We haven't done anything, I swear!"

Her pleading was becoming incessant. And annoying.

I nudged my sister in the rib with my elbow, silently imploring her to for-the-love-of-hell-shut-up.

Smiling sweetly at the guard, I ignored the spear poking into my side and crooned, "It's true, sir. My sister and I were simply passing through. That's not a crime, is it?" I blinked at him.

I could almost ...

The thud of an arrow nailing a hare to the great oak behind it reverberated through the forest.

I slung my bow over my shoulder and stalked toward my fallen prey. Its beady eyes stared senselessly into the distance as it took its final breaths.

"Perfect. Breakfast is served."

Plucking the hare from its perch, I walked toward the campfire some way in the distance. Florence sat in front of it, de...

I am mad, I am mad, I am mad.

The people tell me so day in and day out. I hear their whispers. But they are not so loud as to drown out the screams.

In my waking hours, my chambers flood with oil thick as blood. It soaks my clothes, seeps into my hair, pours in through my eyes. There are screams from the other side of the doors. They scream and scream and scream and I am mad.

In my sleeping hou...

"You're bleeding."

"Yes, that's what happens when you stab someone."

My eyes darted between the sarcasm in her eyes and the hand pressed against her bleeding side.

"They bleed."

I wielded a knife in my hand. Not of my own accord, it seemed, I was responsible for her wound. My hand trembled as I tried my damndest to keep my grip on the knife's hilt, its braided leather no doubt leaving its mark...

Our legs had all but given out long ago. Our bodies ached, our lips begged for even a taste of fresher water than what we had been surviving off of for too many days. Our bones were becoming old, though we felt younger still as we pushed forward.

For what felt like many weeks, we had wandered the forest in search of something, anything, that would tell us we were getting closer.

Closer to life...

"I hear you Mom, I hear you!" Raya hollers on her way out the door, slamming the squeaky hinges closed behind her. Home by dark, she thinks, I can do that.

Her well-worn backpack slung over a shoulder, lantern in hand, Raya makes her way deep into the forest behind her family's squat excuse for a home. She stops and looks back at it once, as though to reassure herself of its presence, and continu...

A guttural scream escapes my father's throat as an arrow embeds itself into a tree not an inch from my face.

Hands grab me from behind, fingertips sinking into the tender skin of my arms and dragging me from the woods. One clamps over my mouth the second I am prepared to call for help, hard enough that I'm unable to move my head. Not that I would have been heard over the chaos of my village.

I k...