Whispers of Heaven by Krista Rose

Author:Krista Rose [Rose, Krista]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2016-03-11T22:00:00+00:00

ALYXEN

25 Alune 578A.F.

The feast thrown for us by the priesthood of Vanae was- to put it mildly- glorious. Plates of roasted chicken and duck, vegetables of every kind swimming in butter and seasonings, and sweet, juicy fruits I had no name for were served to us by white-robed initiates, who stared at us with open curiosity and no little envy, thinking that our travels made us adventurers. It was the first time in as long as I could remember that I had more than enough to eat, and I groaned as I reclined on my cushion, my stomach filled to bursting. My siblings and I were crowded in among the priests and priestesses, who laughed and joked with us as if they had known us for years.

My siblings all but sparkled amid the crimson robes, their presence and personality causing them to shine out from among the casual sensuality that surrounded them. I wondered if Lanya knew that her cheeks were flushed with excitement at being the center of attention, sitting at the head of the table between Nephele and Melore. Brannyn didn’t seem to realize that his brooding had caught the attention of any number of women in the room, though they finally managed to draw him out of his melancholy after he downed several glasses of sweet Valorian wine. Even Kylee seemed cheerful, engaged in a deep conversation with an initiate over their love of horses, and after a while they vanished from the room, presumably to look in the stables at Nightking.

Strangely, it was only Reyce who seemed to not be enjoying himself, surrounded at the far end of the table by a gaggle of young initiates and priestesses, who pestered him repeatedly for our tale. He frowned at them, and I could sense his discomfort at the idea of telling them our dark history.

But I was a story-teller, and this seemed an excellent moment to flex my skills. I distracted them from my brother easily, launching into a highly imaginative retelling of our lives, turning our mundane horror into a terrifying fantasy.

I became aware, around the time that the Crone had turned into a dragon and Lanya had been forced to slay her or else let Kryssa be eaten, that I had captured the attention of the entire room, and all were listening to my tale in rapt silence. Even Lanya and Brannyn were watching me with wide eyes, as if wondering how we could manage to escape from such a terrible beast.

There are some things that are too horrible to speak of, so that the only way to speak of them is to hide the truth behind imagining, which is what I did. The Darkling Prince became a dark shade who befriended and then betrayed me; Marla became a tragic, enchanted wood nymph who was killed by the death of her tree. Brannyn’s eyes sparkled with tears, and he gulped more wine to hide them.

I concluded my tale as we left the woods, smoke billowing in our wake from the destruction of the shade’s castle.

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