Read Online Fiction: Fresh Reads Daily

Gwynna covered her mouth with both hands. Tennoc was coming, and his own wife said he still loved her. Shivers began deep in her chest, spreading out to her fingertips like tiny cramps. Fear, excitement, hatred, love--they all shook her at once, and instead of the strong woman she'd been since Ardunn's birth she was a tree hit by lightning, its bark ripped open and its heartwood exposed. The door opened again and the King stepped through.

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When they reached the theater building, it seemed dark and quiet at first, until Edie found the side door and slipped through. Then she realized the theater itself had just been muffled and darkened as though it were a real performance; there were people on the stage rehearsing, with light and sound in full force. “We are spirits of a different sort,” Oberon was declaiming. It made Edie shiver.

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Sarah Eklemoore would have been a respected journalist, had she been born in an era when they still existed. Unfortunately she was spawned during the dawn of the internet days, and by the time she’d grown-up and passed through college the media had dissolved into little more than a constant, inane chatter of idiocy. Still, she pursued her career anyway, doggedly believing that with enough hard work she could restore a shred of credibility to her once prestigious field. Sadly her editors had little inclination for further Sarah’s dreams, nor tolerating her high-minded ideals.

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Several days passed with no sign from the King, until a messenger arrived. The Temple was to expect a visitor the next day. Would it be some emisssary, or King Temmin himself? That morning, a nervous young Mother came to fetch Gwynna down to the emptied Worship Hall: the visitor stood just outside the doors.

A sharp pang stabbed at Gwynna; life had beaten most of whatever vanity she'd possessed out of her, but she had been beautiful eighteen years ago. Work had roughened her hands, for no one could afford to be idle in the Mother's House. She wore the simple undyed wool habit of a lay Mother, a blue linen veil over her head; it had been long since she'd dressed in fine clothes. She didn't have a mirror to see how she'd aged, and wondered how she would appear in her visitor's eyes. There was nothing to be done for it. She walked to the Worship Hall and stood as she had when Ardunn was a baby, at the feet of the Mother's great statue.

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