Carver of Souls by J.J. Fischer

Author:J.J. Fischer [Fischer, J.J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Mountain Brook Ink
Published: 2024-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

At midnight, rain once again drummed the cabin roof. The sound should have eased Sela’s tension, but she was all too aware of the empty space beside her. Rising from the bed, she pulled on a dressing gown and slipped from the room.

A lone lantern scattered light over the table and onto a vast array of parchments, some single pages or fragments, and others bundled into sheaves. Caleb slept atop the nearest pile, his head supported by one bent arm, his unbound, chestnut hair tumbling past his ear and over the collar of his partially unbuttoned shirt. One ink-stained hand curled against a sheaf of parchments like a dragon guarding his treasure.

Sela sighed. Every moment Caleb was not working or sharing watches with Liron, he pored over his extracts. What did he hope to find, when he had searched a hundred times before?

With Liron in residence, Caleb had returned to his long runs across the island’s beaches. Sela no longer accompanied him, unable to keep up with his frenzied pace, and also wary of the sea, whose waters had several times nearly proved her undoing.

She reached out to touch Caleb’s shoulder just as the door opened.

“Don’t wake him.” Liron stepped inside, closing the door behind him. He cradled a musket, and his wet, black hair stuck out from his head at impossible angles.

He set the weapon aside and came closer. “If ever a man deserved his rest, ’tis Caleb.” He nodded at the bedroom, where Liri and her children slept. “Is the boy asleep?”

“Aye, at last.”

The younger Liron had experienced difficulty adjusting to life on the island. His face often showed his fear that he might be separated from his mother a second time. He clearly missed his father, but Caleb and Liron had forbidden Tucker to visit. The boy’s night terrors finally eased when Liron promised to sleep directly outside the younger Liron’s room.

Sela dropped a blanket around Caleb’s shoulders and glanced at her brother. He was studying Caleb, who sprawled across the parchment-littered table. “He works himself too hard,” he observed.

“Aye, you both do.”

Liron glanced down at his unbranded palm. “Caleb cannot be both scholar and farmer. One day, he will have to choose.”

She frowned. “Caleb can never return to the Righteous.”

Her brother hesitated, biting his lip. Was he keeping something from her? “Should anything happen to me, I know he will look after you, Sela. He loves you more than his own life.”

A squeeze of pain flashed through her. Aye, Caleb had not set her aside, as she feared he would. But whatever bond had once existed between them was surely lost, or at least greatly diminished. Every day, he retreated more deeply into himself.

She forced herself to dwell on other matters. “Are you going to return to the Old Town?”

“Nay, not as a wanted man.” Liron smoothed down his hair, shoving back his fringe. “Until recently, I thought of returning for our family in secret, as Hiram Foley planned to do for his.”

“Until recently?”

“Until I saw Azazel.

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