Account Search Logout
    Header Background Image

    50 Results with the "Historical" genre


    • XXXIII: The Colloquies: Kitchen Ears Cover
      by — Two enormous clamshells sit atop the grill rack, each with golden brown upon their banded domes. Their crusty skin is cool enough to touch, and Niko gently detaches each layer, popping the edges before pulling them free. The thicker, unattractive mold will make a good bottom—this is the story of his life—and that makes him smile. He tosses a handful of semolina into its hallow, spreading and rubbing the grains around before laying down raw cabbage leaves. These large verdant blankets will stop the…
    • XXXIV: The Colloquies: Low Perceptions Cover
      by — The Colloquies: Low Perceptions The majestic peak casts a shadow over the villa, a protective mother whose smothering proximity is a trick to the eyes. Memories of her many visits to this plantation unravel like a fallen scroll. Her mother and Uncle came from lands so far east of Parthia that no Roman name existed. Mother, a wealthy man’s battle bride, settled into an opulent domus in Mediolanum that soon became lonely in Roman bigotry’s shadow. Uncle, with eyes as narrow and face just as…
    • XXXV: The Colloquies: Minds Meeting Cover
      by — Moonlight guides him five hundred steps from the kitchen to the barn. Unease quickens his heart as the worst thoughts plague him. Shadows dancing beneath the cowshed doors prove his hunch correct. Loose hay strands litter the drive bay, where pungent tack and fresh lucerne begin clogging his nose. Warm air overhead brings his attention to the loft. There, the rangy druid sits under the tresses as coals smoldering in the floor pit cast an orange glow behind him. The serpent, Delphine, often spends cold…
    • XXXVI: The Last Leaf Falls Cover
      by — A line of gray rises from the woods, but smokeless chimneys draw him to the village. No guard walks the wall. The smithy forge has gone cold, and courtyard braziers full of wood stand without flame. Pigs slumber in their pen, tightly packed mounds unmoved by his investigation. Knocking on doors yields no one, so he sets off for home under the fading day. Along the main road, he spots the villagers filing down the ridge. Two-wheel carts break up their procession, pulled by young men and full of…
    • XXXVII: The Drunken Bath Cover
      by — Crimson rivulets swirl into the grate, drinking the ritual’s bloody remains. Aedan empties another bucket of water over his head, then upends it atop his basted rags, a lopsided pile of pale red. Cardamon oil forms prismatic clouds upon the water’s skin, its heady scent filling the humid air. Of all the luxuries imposed while living among these wolves, he most enjoys their aromatic baths. The steamy pool lures him into its satiating embrace. Ears full of warmth, he surfaces so the chill can bite…
    • XIII – The Ancalite Wedding Cover
      by — Lucius Vitus Servius once said that rivalry within ranks festers like flesh rot, and if a general ignores it, he’ll lose a man as quickly as a leg. Julius recalls his old friend’s observation as he watches the murdered man’s son glower at Kombius, a prince of the continental Atrebates. The more concerning bit of flesh rot, however, is Titus Labienus, who listens with jowls tight in resentment as the noble speaks of his time as an Ancalite prisoner. Before their first campaign on the island,…
    • Chapter

      II – The Lion

      I – The Lion Cover
      by — His name is Lucius Scipio Servius, or Skipio to those who call him friend. His shorn head shines like ripe wheat, and he stands taller than most, with a robust frame and pleasingly deep tenor. His piercing, verdant eyes come darker than river moss, and his chiseled face boasts a captivating mouth no man can resist. Vitus Servius is his father. A patrician with a vast orchard in the Lepontine Alps, he also farms a thriving walnut grove, its crops famous throughout Rome. Unfortunately, his only son…
    • II – The Owl Cover
      by — His life is defined by how much pain he brings his mother. Twenty-two years ago, Ciniod left her princely father’s house to live with a coastal druid named Fintan, who, for all his holistic prowess, never suspected her already caught. Her pains began on the autumnal, and her unborn babe insisted on coming out ass first. The old druidess tending the delivery cut her belly to liberate him, and she reminds her son of this trauma every time she forces a fart. Aedan the Ancalite is a bony sort with…
    • III – The Calm Before Cover
      by — Longhouses cover the white expanse while half-built ships stretch for miles along the shoreline. The majestic forest is gone, its slenderest remains fueling barracks stoves, its thickest trunks now backbones for Caesar’s flat-bottom boats. Roman victory kills more than those on the battlefield. Like locusts, the legions consume everything. They slaughter livestock and leave those natives unfit for enslavement to starve. One of them, Decurion Servius, marches through the snow, his furry boots crunching…
    • IV – The Set Stage Cover
      by — Haze blankets a sea that burns silver under the high sun. Shadows appear along the vanishing point, first five and then ten, until there are too many ships to count. Continental refugees decried the fleeing prince Mandubracius and his deal with the Roman wolves. Those fresh from the fight said continental warlord Dumnorix fought hard before his fall. They whispered of impending sabotage and a hidden armada—but alas, it’s now clear that Dumnorix, is as dead as his ships. “The wolves paddle across the…
    Note