I never asked to be made tough

to be deconstructed down to my frame and then

left exposed.

I didn’t ask to be made sharp and cold

in the surgical dissection of my mind which you

flayed and laid out

I didn’t want to learn how to withstand

the violence of your face in my mine and my

ears ringing

I didn’t know how to sever heart from all

To learn not to speak or sleep or cry (even if you mus...

It is when the sun falls and the moonlight chill rises that my chest closes and in that quiet my every breath becomes a rattle. This quiet rasping has become a lullaby to which Mother and Father listen nightly and in its rise and fall we hear a tale without need of lyric. I see the truth of it in Mother’s eyes and hear it in Father’s resigned voice. My face won’t feel warmth from the coming spring...

The airplane was going down hard. Now the hatch had swung open, the cabin depressurized and air tore at my clothes, and eyes which wept from the violent whipping.

Leah’s plan had unfolded without a hitch, not that I had any doubts. Well, it was her first time taking point on a heist and I knew well enough to keep my opinion to myself when she made the arrangements. Leah’s a smart girl for sure b...

Scarlet Evercrown (Jane Gardener)

Courtesan of the Thirsty Boar

Scarlet is the most popular of the wenches who work upstairs at the Thirsty Boar, which straddles the Royal citadel of Sparrowe. Being so close to the castle proper, the patronage of the Thirsty Boar are well-to-do ambitious but middle-class clergy, officials, craftsman and household staff.

Blonde and blue-eyed, Scarlet appears ...