#eris malarin

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Spring is on the way.

Looking to get into a new story to carry you into the new season? Maybe a longform dark fantasy web serial with magic swords, haunted forests, sexy demons, and the occasional splash of sapphic spirituality? One with over 325,000 words already online, and 3,000 more coming every weekend?

I write Blank Slate. It's about fire. Come check it out.

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Interlude: Eris Malarin 

I could tell what happened—but the story’s not just what happened.   Important to say we had a choice at the beginning, though in another sense we hadn’t had any choice at all.   The Church condemned us, and we ran from them. We found the druids as we ran from the Church, and we parleyed with them to save her life. The druids’ price was to bring us to Caer Lunan, and so to Caer Lunan we went.…

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3.2.1 - Coil 

“Who is…Anat?”   “My friend,” Hope said, as though I ought have known this. “We play together. Biddy says you were a Sister in the South.”   “That’s…right.” Hope was watching me again, but I could no longer tell what was passing behind her young features. “Biddy Callend?”   Hope nodded.  “She says she saw you in Dawnfire once.”   “I hadn’t known she was from Dawnfire.” I tried to smile. “She…

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3.1.4 - Trust 

“Eris-tae,” Rina said brightly, looking up. “Tollel iv, sit and join us.”   The strange sense of calling intensified when Eris stepped onto our section of rush matting, like a dream only half remembered. I struggled to marshal my thoughts for a welcome as she dropped to one knee and then the other, very close to Grannine, a little nearer to Rina than to me.   Eris put on her good cheer, drew…

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3.1.1 - Thiir

HELLO to new readers, welcome to the first of many Sunday updates to come! To old readers, ENJOY

As a novice in the Abbey of Saint Isaac I had been obliged to conform myself to the rhythm of each day. I was required to be present for morning prayer and vespers, to attend to chores, and to stand vigil through the night when it was asked of me. In the early weeks before I learnt the names of the Sisters or even the hours of these responsibilities, I was forced to rely upon observation alone,…

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2.7.3 - Raven Lake

Lord-Hunter Meteth and four of his druids served as an escort for myself, Eris, and Rina. The four druids greeted Rina, and were greeted in turn as Raqua-dul, Targol-kul, Dal-tul, and Jot. This latter druid was one of the largest men I had ever seen.   I wondered whether this guard was intended as a tacit insult to Rina, by not counting her among the auspicious five for such things. Were druid…

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2.7.2 -  Defiance Answered

HAPPY NEW YEAR. What, you thought we'd take a break? Holidays only increase my power. And we're not QUITE done yet.

“Mariead.”   I moved before I understood the action, pushing Eris back.   I could not say by what evidence She had known—the sound of a footfall, the parting of the air before a blade—but when I wheeled around, Eris had fallen into a snowdrift, and I faced another Church soldier.   He was only a man. Furious, fearful, worn with a long forced march. I wondered who he might have hoped to see in…

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2.7.0 - Sanctuary

I stood in a vast and empty space. A cavern. A gulf. A cathedral. Once it had lived and breathed the Holy Writ, animated by the fire of light through stained glass. Now all that remained of its architecture was a span of broken cobblestone and the base of a fractured pulpit.   At my feet, an angel. The visage of an angel. The sculpture of an angel. What was the visage of an angel if not the very…

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2.6.5 - Waning Dawnfire  

The sun ascended inch by inch into the thick and snow-heavy clouds of the receding storm, and the shadow of that passing blizzard fell over the shores of Raven Lake like a funeral shroud. The golden fog began to wane even as we broke from the trees, the main part of our forces emerging from the Forest a few paces south of the little hill from which we surveyed the terrain.   Seen now in the…

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2.6.6 - Rising Dawnsong  

For the main part, it was not battle that destroyed armies. Scholars of history and war had been clear on this point above all others; it was not hazards on the field of war that put an end to military campaigns. The ambitions of queens and generals met their end before the same wraiths that had persecuted our flight from Caer Lunan. Sickness, starvation, storms or winterdeep.   Or rout.   The…

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3.2.2 - Shivex  

LAST WEEKEND OF APRIL YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS IT'S HOT GIRL SUMMER IN THE NORTHERN HEMISPHERE

Though death had never been a stranger in my life, still it was strange to consider it a friend. Yet this was the enjoinder of the Book of Death, and it was on this that I meditated long after the day had ended and the Ix-akad had grown still.  While there were halls and chambers for sleeping, some druids chose to sleep elsewhere for duty or company—and others seemed not to sleep at all. The…

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3.1.6 - Share 

When I emerged from the depths of the Healing-Hall, I found its antechamber clean and empty, with crates stacked and bundles neatly piled upon each shelf.  The men from Caer Lunan had retreated back out of the Hall, into the corridor that joined to the Ix-Akad and the Hall of Beasts. There, I found a crowd broken apart into loose circles, the better to talk without blocking the way.   More had…

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3.1.3 - Safe

The Kuura-akad was tranquil again. Nash, Sedec, and the other druids of Starfurrow had departed with their rations and reinforcements, off to brave the long journey and the frozen Runing. The milling flock of restless Hunters was gone, replaced by quiet activity among those who remained. Even my arrival with Rina did not incur much fanfare beyond a bow or a murmur of greeting.   “Ortag-al,…

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2.4.1 - Second Wind

Nothing at all had changed. We still hadn’t enough food to last us the journey. We were hunted. Despite the shared danger, we remained in some cases divided from within. The fangs of winterdeep were bared to take our weak and injured, our path home impeded by a storm the likes of which we ought rightly not have seen until the solstice.   We had played our hand, stolen from the Church. They would…

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2.6.3 - Bodies  

We had not arrived in time.   Perhaps we could never have done so. The fever had cut through our camp in the brief time of our journey. Exposed as we were to the elements, with meagre supplies for survival under the best of circumstances, there had been nothing to be done; even the druids could do little more than offer broth and prayer.   When we left Caer Lunan, we numbered one hundred and…

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2.6.2 - Stitched Canvas  

Lines of fire wheeled over the heavenly dome, stitching arcs and transits in blazing scarlet. Far beyond shelter or firmament, my thoughts danced through crowds of pivoting halos, seraphine wheels of fire, each the champion to a message I could not understand. Many of one, a unity of eaches, supplicant and supplicated.   “They’re away.”   I blinked.   Dermot steamed with exertion in the…