Chapters of the Solfawn novels, serialized as they are written.
The cold blue light did not stay in one place. It moved through the broken tower in narrow veins, appearing beneath one stone and vanishing beneath the next. Each pulse climbed a little higher before sinking back into the ruin. From the foot of the shattered stair, Apple thought it looked as though something beneath […]
The last of the humans had stopped moving. For several breaths, Lyceeum did not seem to understand. The village remained braced around the violence: shutters fastened across oval windows, doors barred from within, rope bridges drawn up into the hornbeams. Smoke from a cookfire escaped beneath the eaves of a low building and flattened against […]
By morning, Fishbrook had become a collection of roofs behind them. The road climbed the long shoulder of Mindoro Point, turning back upon itself twice before reaching the top. From there the four of them could see nearly the whole of the country they had crossed since leaving Greenvale. The fields below lay bright beneath […]
The destruction’s southern edge looked like a decision the world regretted. On one side, Greenvale still stood beneath its high green canopy. On the other, the forest had been flattened, burned, or removed. Trees lay in splintered rows with their crowns pointing away from the temple. Others remained upright but stripped white. Blue sparks crawled […]
Apple discovered that making pie was considerably more difficult than eating it. This seemed unfair. He had eaten enough pie to understand the important parts. There was crust. There was something good inside the crust. There was sugar. The third part had apparently been doing more work than Apple had appreciated. He stood over a […]
The Ti Stone did not want to be lifted. Apple understood that before anyone touched it. The deep red stone remained inside its cradle of black root and silver metal, exactly where it had rested when Lati first brought them into the heart chamber. The two ley currents approached from different degrees. One folded the […]
Apple did not remember closing his eyes. He remembered Simiah voices moving through the dark. He remembered the Ti Stone beneath the floor, carrying one current around another. He remembered Lati on the far side of the platform, her face turned toward the trees while the gemstone light passed beneath her. Then someone knocked on […]
Apple felt the road open before he saw it. The change came through the soles of his feet. The soil beneath the clearing gave a small, settling sigh. Roots drew away from one another. Leaves lifted from the ground and turned their wet faces toward the trees. Then the wall of green divided. Morning waited […]
Sebastian woke with his face pressed into damp leaves and the conviction that someone had driven an iron spike through the back of his skull. He opened one eye. Morning had reached the forest, though it had not reached the ground. Green light filtered through the canopy in thin, reluctant shafts. Every leaf seemed too […]
The mill continued coming apart behind them. A peg struck wood. A roof board lifted. The great saw assembly gave a long metallic groan as the elves loosened another fitting and laid it beside the confiscated axes. No one answered Apple’s judgment. They did not need to. The conversation had ended with Wyn choosing sides […]