Sarah Ash – fantasy author

Chapter Two

Schimeon the Tailor’s workroom was hot with the steam of pressing irons heating on the fire.

Rahab set down his heavy bundle of swatches and peeled off his jacket.

‘Ouf,’ he said, wiping his face on his sleeve.

‘So?’ Schimeon said, looking up at his apprentice from the cutting bench. ‘Did Sieur Berengar give us the wedding contract?’ Read the rest of this entry »

Chapter Three

Khassian lay watching the raindrops slowly trickle down the unshuttered windowpanes. Beyond, a rain mist hid the distant green hillside from view. Did it always rain at this accursed spa? It had been raining since before dawn; he had lain awake listening to the drops pattering against the windows until the first wet light illumined his room.

Sleep eluded him. Whenever he drifted into a doze, images of flame and fire scored his dreams and he woke, sweating, terrified. There were other dreams too, drugged dreams, poppy-drowsed and darkly narcotic. Teetering on the edge of a black abyss, a stinking pit from whose smoke-wreathed deeps shrouded things crawled, clawing at him, threatening to pull him down into the depths.

Better to stay awake than to dream these terrors. Better to watch the dawn bring in yet another day. Read the rest of this entry »

Prologue

Springtide on Ael Lahi.

Dusktide washing the pale sands.

Moontide.

Lai Dhar scanned the twilit bay. The seashore was, as he had hoped, empty. No one would hear him here if he sneaked one last practice before the new moon rose.

He sat down, bare toes wriggling through the warm sand to the damp sediment below, so deliciously cool after the day’s heat. Read the rest of this entry »