She flared brighter still; hotter, filling the small space with thin
tendrils of smoke.
“I’s hot, I’s broke ans I’s empty! A fleck. A fleck more craggy
games ans,” Articulating each word with a gnashing of jagged teeth
and greater bright, Mitra cracked louder, wincing as it bounced back,
“CHOMP CHOMP GOES YOUS BRANCHES!”
Her cage shuddered and peeled open and Mitra grinned. She
cackled, standing taller on her single leg, unaware of the switch
stretching out behind her.
As the switch flicked, Mitra’s backside cried out with a
fractured pop before her smug grin slapped against the dried sediment
of a weathered rock three strides away.
With pursed lips and dwindling pride she shook off the
indignity and muttered, incoherently, as she fluttered onward, toward
the sickly green light wavering through the fog. Despite what it
signaled, she found herself elated by the sight of those greens.
As monstrous as her brother was—had always been—he was
family…and the closest thing to a friend she could claim.
At least since the Lady, her core whispered, drawing her from
what would be, what was, into what never could be again. Sinking into
that reverie, she drifted all too sweetly on a sea of memories, only
passing aware the trees were shifting...
Cavernous laughter echoed through them, scattering what few
creatures dared hunt so close, but Mitra heard no such laughter, no
such terror. Weary, dreamy and absently munching on her hair, she
wafted over howling chasms, under haggard bridges of crumbling rock
and beyond the dried pit of a starving lake.
Before a familiar whirring interrupted her bliss.
“Din’d eyes!” she spat, following the sound to the ocular.
A round, metal device just bigger than she, hovering as easily
in the threads of fog. The beaming red dot of its eye swiveled with her
shout, to stare. To study. It grew and shrunk, clicking and chirping as it
captured her image—storing it for her brother’s more eager eyes.
Cover art for Weald and Wen: Book One of Children of Mar
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