Snippets Snippets

Small excerpt from my current work in process

Battling procrastination is hard, especially for someone as undisciplined as this author is (if we acknowledge our flaws, do they disappear?). So I have discovered force writing - just plain, old writing by force where I am the punisher and the punished, and the penalty is doing something my soul craves and laziness detests.

So here is one product of such force writing, a snippet of Chapter Nine of my current WIP.

***

The streets of Tivaren never truly slept; they only changed flavor the farther one descended - from perfumed balconies and white stone archways to grime-slick cobbles and smoke-choked air. The lanterns thinned out by the time Riven reached the lower rings, their light swallowed by the damp fog rising from the sea.

Head down, Riven wove through the slow tide of dockworkers and street vendors packing up for the night. The Peddler’s Harbor sprawled below, a maze of ropes, masts, and tar-streaked boards, its ships moored like slumbering beasts. The scent of salt, fish oil, and rust coated his throat. Vendors collected their wares and locked up their chests, closing up to pass the shift to another type of trade. Work never ended in lower tiers of Tivaren; it only changed hands from clean to shady.

His scars burned again. It started days ago, a pulse - faint at first, before spreading beneath his scars, all from his chin to his chest. The pain was constant, making breathing hard, and he pressed his palm against the fabric of his shirt, as if he could smother it. The ache had been growing worse with each day since he returned to Tivaren, since he came close to the swamp.

Sometimes he wondered if the markings had a consciousness of their own.

A group of children loitered near the gutter, their eyes sharp and knowing. Riven flicked a few coins toward them without breaking stride. He knew who they were without knowing them at all. Runners. The city’s veins. Either orphans or simply a surplus of unattended children that seem to live in the alleys and gutters of Tivaren’s worst neighborhood. Chandre’s eyes and ears as long as the coin trickled.

Noble or peasant, it did not matter; Tivaren’s children always had fate decided for them.

Riven turned into a narrow side street, where the light dimmed and the smell shifted from salt to rot. Here, the empire’s marble grandeur gave way to crumbling plaster and uneven cobblestones, the kind of place where even Tivaren’s guards walked in pairs.

A wave of tiredness came over him for a moment, and he massaged his eyes as he walked. Another thing returned to him besides the pain since his return to Tivaren - loss of sleep. He’d stopped sleeping properly ever since he came ashore. When he did drift off, the dreams came - large trees with faces etched into ancient barks, flashes of glowing green eyes, and shadows that moved beneath them. And a booming, echoing voice that clung to his bones long after he would wake drenched in sweat, his chest burning as if something beneath his skin still tried to claw its way out.

It was always the same things the voice would say: The child that was stolen must be returned.

He knew now less than he had known three years ago, and the voice from his dreams never answered his questions. It only demanded. Nothing made sense anymore, and the burning pain and lack of sleep made him short-tempered. It made him remember things he’d rather not - like the man he used to be before Chandre found him.

Riven turned another street, his boots splashing on the wet cobblestone. The safehouse sat wedged between a shuttered tea shop and an apothecary that sold more opium than medicine. The sign above the door was half-rotted - The Drowned Piper - though the tavern itself hadn’t served ale in years. Three years ago, stripped of his titles and name, he’d been living above a similar tavern, spending his days nursing cheap liquor, and his nights bleeding for the amusement of men who threw bets faster than he could throw punches.

Now, he was a man on a mission.

***

Force writing for the win!

A submission to the wonderful Merrows' Moon Academy.