I sit at the end of the long-bench in a dingy old sodahouse. The sound of rowdy people yelling, singing, and fighting in Galtsech. I’m far from the crowd. They welcomed me with open arms as i find Galtsyns are prone to do, but i respectfully shooed them away and found a place to drink my sugarcup alone. Before long i find myself looking at the sword. It’s been haunting me for months. A spiteful gift, it must be. I don’t know its name, or if the Lamdhelts even name their blad

Fourteen years ago I fell to my death before a live audience while acrobating. I am an adept person, and quite flexible, so it wasn’t difficult moving from that to this. body is awfully pliable. So is the substance of most things. You find here, eventually, a lack of you, but also that nothing can really be destroyed. New shapes. Old shapes set down somewhere. To make ends meet—and I suppose I never did, nor do any of us, I think—I waitressed at a place downtown whose busi

i was laid out across her couch as the minutes crawled closer to midnight—each one with their collective mouths agape, the minutes: small teeth bared, eyes wide, wide, wider, watching my heart try to claw its way through a tiny exit wound in my chest. in the stuffy air of her living room i listened to her breathing; soft, unassuming—the shape of her existence looming even in sleep, a willow that brushed its skeletal limbs over me like a ghost in perpetual passing. this is no

the day marking my 15th year since my birth two adults came to my home and began to lead me to the Heart of the City. I didn’t know what was happening except that i was going to begin my induction. I never understood why they kept the rituals secret since we’d all need to do them one day, but i was going to find out soon anyway. They led me through twisting caverns for what felt like days, telling me to keep moving whenever mylegs gave out. My eyes gradually grew used to the