.fayrenaissance
Synopsis
El and Michail, witch and her bodyguard, have known each other for more than five years. They've had plenty of opportunity to bond, between El's mother's recent departure, leaving her the resident witch of the Airalee tribe, and their travels among the tribe on the nomadic trails, as well as El's magical contract business and her duty to her remaining family. And then something ruins the precarious balance that they have attained among their people: a mysterious, horrific attack, leaving two unfortunate victims torn apart and dead. It is El's and, by default, Michail's job to cleanse the Airalee lands of the threat before they return next year. Protection of the tribe: that is a witch's job.
But it isn't that simple. El's mother may be the only one that can help the pair of them, and she has gone mysteriously missing. Worse, the threat is soon identified: patchwork monsters made of dead flesh, thread, and magic, held together with human sacrifices. The lands that the monsters originate from hold only suspicious townspeople who prove to be less than eager to answer their questions, and they are led to a secretive Church that is divided on whether or not a disturbing prophecy is to come true, and how to prevent a god from being born.
In a world of dangerous contracts, patchwork monsters, expanding territories and nomadic cultures, El and Michail are soon drawn into a web of horrific truths and debatably real warrior gods, and when they come to confrontation, El has to ask herself a difficult question: should she stick to her moral code and hope for the best, or should she come down to her enemies' level in order to best them?
Excerpt
She was okay. She was recovering. Not from their deaths, but from the sheer horror of it. The mourning would take longer, but at least she could see past an image of red painted on the inside of her eyelids. She'd be expected to do the funeral rites. She had to be alert to do it.
Michail, seeming to notice her newfound "calm," stood, offering a hand without a thought, and pulled her to her feet. They walked silently through the caravans, entering theirs without a second thought. The smell of oranges greeted them. El ignored it.
"Would you like tea?" Michail offered, already retrieving the canister of tea leaves from its drawer. He never seemed to be quite as fazed, as helpless in the face of shock, as El. She was left feeling jealous.
But several minutes later Michail handed her one cup of scalding-hot black tea and sipped at another, and she remembered why they were so reliant on each other.
Yes, she thought, if ever one of them died, the other was probably screwed. She could hardly sleep alone in a room without the sound of his breathing somewhere nearby, let alone function like a normal human being day after day without him watching her back.
The tea began to cool and she relaxed, feeling the warmth flow up her hands and through the air to go down her throat and settle pleasantly in her stomach. Not magic, but just the power of a familiar setting and a familiar drink. Mmm.
"You don't want to talk about it." It wasn't a question. Michail glanced at her from the corner of his eye.
"No, I don't," she said. "Neither do you."
"No, I don't." He sipped. "Want to read?"
"I really should work on the funeral rites before tomorrow morning..."
"Maybe," he said, each word perfectly enunciated, "I am becoming a bad influence, but personally, I think that that would be a horrible idea. Come on. Read a book with me." He grinned.
"Aren't you supposed to be the responsible one?" she sighed.
"It's all an act. Come on." He grabbed her by the arm and playfully pulled her back to the bed as she had begun to halfway stand. She finally gave in and emitted the tiniest of smiles.
"Good job," he applauded. "Come on. I was reading that one about the girl with the lion. The children's stories about that girl... you know? With all the pictures."
"Yes, I do. Some people call those comics," she said, raising an eyebrow, but she set down her empty cup and flopped onto the bed anyway like most people would their bedroom floor, lazily and with perfect abandon. "Fine. Sure."
He grabbed the book from the table where he'd left it and joined her, splaying the pages out in front of them. He started right in the middle, where he'd stopped. She didn't mind. She knew the story by heart anyway.
She lost herself in the casually-drawn art, the fluidity of lines and the blend of color, hand-drawn in a reckless and quick style that still somehow emphasized the pure motions of the characters' bodies. Art was simple. Mathematical. Formulaic. At least, in comics.
It helped her to not think.
He knew her too well.
