Chapter 1 of Requiem’s Rise, Prequel to the Scarred World Saga!
Blog:
Well, Fellow Creatures, as I just shared in my newsletter, the manuscripts for both Requiem’s Rise and Sword of the Scarred are officially locked.
After years of writing, revising, beta feedback, and more line-by-line tinkering than I care to admit, these stories are finally moving toward publication.
To celebrate, I wanted to share the first chapter of Requiem’s Rise—the prequel that introduces Requiem Balestone and sets the stage for everything that follows in the Scarred World Saga.
Take a gander below.
I hope it whets your appetite.
And if you’d like to read the full prequel for free when it releases, join Messages from Elsewhere. Newsletter subscribers will be among the first to know when it drops.
Chapter 1:
She was crying, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.
Despite his newfound power and the weeks he’d spent developing his abilities, Requiem Balestone felt as helpless as he had months ago, when he was nothing but a miner in a cave trying to meet the week’s requirement of precious stone.
“What can I do?” said Requiem.
“Nothing,” said Sasha, wiping her eyes.
“We knew this would happen.”
“Doesn’t make it easier,” said Sasha.
Requiem kept looking at the short message in his hand, and then at the sheathed sword leaning against the table. The crimson gem lodged into the center of the weapon’s crossguard glared back at him. He could feel that strange pull from it, the one that told him to come closer, that they were too far apart. That they were forever linked now. Above it were the words etched into the fuller. A story that would follow him wherever he went, so long as he survived. A story he wished he never had to tell.
“It’ll only be a few days.”
“You don’t know that,” said Sasha.
Requiem opened his mouth to say otherwise, but couldn’t. Who knew how long he’d be on the road for? Dorja and the others had told him tales from their own adventures that had them away from home for months at a time.
But this was his first expedition. Surely he wouldn’t be sent far away, would he?
Sasha tipped her head back as if that might stop her tears. She lingered on the far-off ceiling of their common room. The perfectly cut beams of stone ran together like strands from an opulent web. The big windows just below let in a dazzling red light. Outside, a strand of the Abyss, the gaseous, ever-changing wall that surrounded the ends of their world, had made its way over the sun, casting a bloody haze over the city. “You’re going to miss him.”
“Stop it,” said Requiem.
“What?” said Sasha.
“You don’t know that. It’s your mind playing tricks on you. Worries coming up like black water in a bad well. That’s it.”
Sasha kept speaking as her hands moved to her belly, swollen and low. “You’re going to miss him, and he’s going to come here, into this…this place without his father.”
“This place is our home now,” said Requiem.
“Is it?” said Sasha.
“It will be. It’ll take some time to get used to it, but it will be. Better him here than the broken down shite we had to dam up each night from the rains back at Silver Hole. And I’m not going to miss him. He’s not going anywhere.”
Sasha looked away from him.
“Sasha…”
“Silver Hole. The mines. That was simple. Straightforward.”
“You’re telling yourself that now. How many times did we talk about cave-ins? Sickness? Some wandering beast having its way with one of us if we strayed too close to town’s edge? We’re safe now. Finally. He’s going to be safe now.”
“Safe without his father? You not being here was never part of the plan.”
“Safer now with what I am. With what I’ve become. Look around you. We’re surrounded by walls. Walls. There are a hundred guards who do nothing but keep an eye out for what’s coming. This is better than what we could have hoped for him.”
Sasha thought for a moment before she stood and walked over to Requiem, unable to meet his gaze. She leaned up and kissed the side of his mouth so he could taste the sourness of her tears. “Since we both opened our eyes in this world, haven’t known a day without seeing you.”
“That ain’t true. Been plenty of nights too long in the mine.”
Sasha shook her head. “Come back. Promise me and him you’ll come back.”
“I promise,” said Requiem, though he knew there were no promises capable of being kept where he was going. The open road of the world and all its dangers weren’t great at helping men keep such things.
Especially not for the Scarred.
Without another word, she walked away from him, holding the belly that carried their child, and stepped out onto the balcony overlooking the city of Bolliad. A place still so foreign to both of them that it might as well have been the moon overhead.
Requiem looked down once more at the message, folded it, and tucked it into his belt. He grabbed his dread metal sword, the one he’d named Ruse, and relief overcame him as if he’d just been reunited with long-lost kin.
He adjusted his armor, the heavy plate he’d become so accustomed to wearing over the past few weeks of training, and walked out the door of their manse, a new warrior who felt like he lost his first battle.
TO BE CONTINUED…
If you’d like to continue Requiem’s journey, join Messages from Elsewhere and I’ll let you know the moment the full prequel is available.
Requiem’s Rise will be released free to subscribers, and it’s only the beginning of the Scarred World Saga.
I can’t wait to share the rest with you, Fellow Creatures.
See you in Elsewhere.