Fiction
Ashes Beneath Hollowspire - Part 3
The descent began at dusk, when the last light touched the horizon like a burnt wick. The mine entrance gaped like an ancient mouth, framed by rusted rails and reinforced with skeletal supports etched in a hybrid of old sigils and modern stabilizing glyphs. The surrounding earth seemed to lean inward, as if trying to reclaim the wound. The stone glimmered faintly, not with ore, but with veins of dormant light, pulsing softly to the rhythm Elira now recognized: not natural tremor, but echo-song. A buried harmony that tugged at magic, memory, and marrow alike.
By Richard Baileyabout a year ago in Chapters
Businesswoman Chapter 187
In the belly of the detention center in New Castle, Vichy looked down at the bay of glass walls and telephones. “Entrepreneur Paul” Atkinson had been recused from the case. He picked up the receiver on the other side of the glass.
By Skyler Saundersabout a year ago in Chapters
Ashes Beneath Hollowspire - Part 2
The next morning broke with a sky the color of old slate. Clouds churned above Hollowspire like a wounded beast trapped beneath the heavens, restless and clawing. The town sat under that bruised sky like a secret buried too shallow, its edges rimmed in blackened shale and the mine yawning open like a throat carved into the earth. Its scaffolds groaned under their own weight, reinforced with etched sigils that shimmered faintly in the shifting light. No workers moved among them. No carts rolled over the gravel paths. The mine was not abandoned, but it had long stopped belonging to the living.
By Richard Baileyabout a year ago in Chapters
Ashes Beneath Hollowspire - Part 1
The road to Hollowspire twisted like a spine cracked too many times. Fog clung low over the dirt path, thick as breath on glass, curling between ancient trees that stretched like skeletal limbs toward a grey, overcast sky. Each step forward felt like trespass. The woods had long forgotten how to welcome strangers.
By Richard Baileyabout a year ago in Chapters
Businesswoman Chapter 185
Jury selection called for “Entrepreneur Paul” Atkinson to appear in court. He laughed. This presented one of the few times he actually wore a suit. A ten- thousand-dollar suit at that. Once he read through the letter, he had in mind both his timing and effort in applying his business acumen.
By Skyler Saundersabout a year ago in Chapters
The House That Still Waits for Her
It’s been eight years since she walked out of that door, and still, the house waits. People say it’s silly—assigning memory to wood and stone—but I know better. I’ve lived here long enough to hear the echoes. To see the signs. Some places hold on to people. They keep the shape of their presence like breath lingering on glass. This house? It remembers her.
By Jawad Khanabout a year ago in Chapters
