(Click here for links to other chapters.) Kymr is stripped to the waist, setting on a stool, with a priest standing behind him holding a wet towel.  One of Sister Mays nurses stands beside the priest holding a basin of the blessed and sanctified water.  We have reached a deal with Kymr, and the farce … Continue reading Spire: Chapter 26

(Click here for links to other chapters.) We send Lars to rest—I don’t think he slept at all last night—and I decide to find Jes and wander around town a bit.  Jes is looking at the sky, as usual, but joins me anyway. “One of the Sorcerers, Blight, started packing, so he may be leaving … Continue reading Spire: Chapter 25-part 2

(Click here for links to other chapters.) I watch Mynar closely, this is the third elaborate trial since spring—counting the haranguing of Ambassador Aker as the first—and I am certain he’s very near an eye roll.  I don’t want to miss it.  But I am not so absorbed in Mynar watching that I am not … Continue reading Spire: Chapter 25-part 1

(Click here for links to other chapters.) Mother and father are busy deciding exactly how much to tell Lars.  (I get the impression they really don’t want to tell him I talk to the Sword.)  Mynar is working on his plan to use the assassin, and the Sorcerers are my problem. The sergeants and I … Continue reading Spire: Chapter 24

(Click here for links to other chapters.) When I leave the keep later in the day, I find Jes still looking happily at the leaden grey sky.  I walk over intending to find out, this time, why he wants snow so much, but before I reach him, the Guild Master of the leather workers runs … Continue reading Spire: Chapter 23

(Click here for links to other chapters.) I find father in front of mother’s fire, both of them staring at it as if they have decided I should not be part of whatever conversation I’ve interrupted. I tell them about the rumors I’ve picked up, and stop there.  For a moment, a very short moment, … Continue reading Spire: Chapter 22

(Click here for links to other chapters.) It is two more days before  Sister Mays and the priests are ready to remove the words.  They have spent the two days debating removing the words one at a time, or immersing him in a bath, to remove all at once.  One at a time won when … Continue reading Spire: Chapter 21

(Click here for links to other chapters.) Three days later and everyone from father to the guards to the cooks in the kitchen are getting more and more nervous, despite the fact that I am healthy and un-assassinated.  Jes is practically living in the corridor outside Kymr’s cell, to be available whenever he has a … Continue reading Spire: Chapter 20