The Carnelian King and Other Stories by Arden Powell

Author:Arden Powell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: queer fantasy, cozy fantasy romance, sword and sorcery, fantasy short story collection, gay fantasy romance, sapphic fantasy, action adventure fantasy, romantic fantasy, fantasy romance, gothic horror, gothic romance, romantasy, dragon fantasy
Publisher: Arden Powell
Published: 2024-09-30T00:00:00+00:00

JAMES HAD MISPLACED Theo. He was acutely aware at all times of everyone inside Remington Place, which was often limited to himself and his assistant. But now, his senses told him that he was quite alone, save for the corpse of the elderly wizard. It was unlike Theo to go wandering off, and unlike the shop to separate the two of them. Something else had interfered without James’s notice or permission, which would simply not do.

He turned to the corpse. He had laid it out on the table in the back room, out of sight of any customers who might enter the shop. Despite the inconvenience of its presence, he had intended to grace Theo with a few hours to track down the man's connections before discretely disposing of the body. With Theo’s disappearance coinciding with the man's death, James suspected that the two events were entwined, and a more thorough investigation of the body was required.

He opened the man up with the neat efficiency of unfolding a crisply ironed shirt. Jacket, shirt, then skin and ribs were opened until the man was altogether flat, his layers falling to either side like the pages of a book for James to read. And there, written in an alphabet of blood and bone, was the story of a house that hungered ever more.

“I do hate when people meddle with eldritch entities,” James informed the corpse. “It causes no end of problems, without fail.”

Being dead, the corpse made no reply. That was fine. James did not require the wizard’s input. What he wanted was direct contact with the entity that had consumed the wizard’s life and which was now making a nuisance of itself in his shop. Taking the wizard’s remains, he refolded them like origami, reshaping the body from that of a man to that of a house, in miniature.

“Now,” said James, “show me where you have taken my assistant.”

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