thanh.nguyenhoang.1403@gmail.com
Stories
168
Chapters
1,512
Words
3.2 M
Comments
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Reading
11 d, 4 h
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The second blast of the Fae horn was closer. It was a jagged, atonal shriek of hollowed bone and brass that did not merely cut through the Celtic woods; it vibrated inside the marrow of Elowen’s bones. Around them, the ancient hawthorn forest was dying in accelerated time. Without the familiar bond to anchor the protective wards, the canopy was shedding its leaves in a torrential, bleeding rain. The thick, supernatural mist that had kept the lake hidden for two decades was evaporating into thin wisps…-
24.1 K • Completed
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The skeletal hounds did not bark. They released a high, vibrating keen that fractured the frozen air, their jaws snapping shut on the scent of ancient magic. Bran did not have wings to snap open. He did not have the weightless, frictionless grace of a shadow to ride the wind out of reach. For a fraction of a second, the ingrained instinct of the raven fired in his brain—launch, climb, seek the canopy—and met the heavy, terrifying reality of a human skeleton anchored to the earth by gravity. The…
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24.1 K • Completed
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The draft blowing from the southern tunnel smelled of pine needles, freezing rain, and absolute, unfettered sky. It was the scent of a world that did not know the heavy, suffocating wards of the Celtic woods. It was the scent of an open door. Bran stood at the threshold of the dark tunnel, the upper half of the Arthurian lake sword gripped in his right hand. The ancient, star-forged metal hummed against his palm, perfectly balanced, radiating a lethality that aligned flawlessly with the heavy, newly…
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24.1 K • Completed
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Tap. Tap-tap. Drag. The sound echoed off the cold basalt of the subterranean cavern, a sharp, rhythmic percussion that was entirely too human for a creature born of shadow. Elowen pressed her spine against the jagged stone wall, her lungs paralyzed. The freezing draft from the southern trod whipped her dark hair across her face, but she could not feel the cold. She could only hear the rhythm. She stared at Bran’s large, pale right hand. His long fingers rested against his heavy thigh, unconsciously…
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24.1 K • Completed
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The words hung in the freezing, dust-choked air of the cavern, sharper and far more lethal than the star-forged iron scattered on the floor. You just found a new way to visit a grave. Bran did not look back. He walked away, his massive, pale shoulders rigid, the heavy wool of Elowen’s ruined cloak dragging across the blood-slicked basalt. The silver-blue light pulsing from the shard in his chest cast long, distorted shadows that warped and stretched against the cavern walls, mocking the very nature of…
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24.1 K • Completed
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The Fae commander lowered his hand. A hundred bone-tipped arrows fell out of the winter sky. Bran did not remember how to catch a blade. He did not remember how a general measured distance, how a raven judged wind, or how Kaelen had once turned a shield to make iron glance away. Those borrowed certainties were ash inside him. What remained was choice. He threw himself over Elowen. The first arrow struck the stone beside his hand. The second tore through the wool at his shoulder. The third would have…
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24.1 K • Completed
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THALEIA The future tastes of copper, crushed mint, and the bitter tang of ozone. I kneel on the cold marble floor of the White Citadel’s inner sanctum, my head bowed beneath the suffocating weight of the golden laurel wreath. It digs into my temples, the leaves sharp and unforgiving, acting as the conduit between my mind and the Archons who stand in a semicircle around me. They do not wear gold. They wear the heavy, dark robes of the city-state’s ruling council, their hands resting on the polished…-
25.3 K • Completed
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THALEIA The future tastes of copper, crushed mint, and the bitter tang of ozone. I kneel on the cold marble floor of the White Citadel’s inner sanctum, my head bowed beneath the suffocating weight of the golden laurel wreath. It digs into my temples, the leaves sharp and unforgiving, acting as the conduit between my mind and the Archons who stand in a semicircle around me. They do not wear gold. They wear the heavy, dark robes of the city-state’s ruling council, their hands resting on the polished…
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25.3 K • Completed
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DAMON The water is freezing, a subterranean river of snowmelt and ancient rain that bites into my calves like liquid iron. We are plunging deeper into the dark, leaving the pulverized stone of the labyrinth’s antechamber behind. I carry Thaleia high against my chest, my arms locked beneath her knees and around her back. She is impossibly light, yet her presence is the heaviest thing I have ever borne. Her head rests against my shoulder, her breathing shallow and ragged, the golden glow of her eyes…
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25.3 K • Completed
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THALEIA My skin remembers a sun that no longer exists. The Aegean sea crashes against the jagged limestone of the shore, a violent, deafening roar of freezing water and biting salt, but all I can feel is the phantom warmth of a summer afternoon that has just been unwritten from the cosmos. I am curled on the merciless rocks, drenched to the bone, my lungs burning with the sharp scent of ozone and brine. Yet, in the hollowest part of my chest, I am breathing in the scent of blooming jasmine and crushed…
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25.3 K • Completed
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