#also the conversation in 'cruel'. that's the first time yulei and nara have a real bonding moment when they discuss the further...

[muddshadow]

find the word tag

*slams pans together* another volley of words!! this time from @spacetimewraithwrites and @sentfromwolves !! my counterstrike is aimed for @pinespittinink , @awritingcaitlin , @kashacreates , @lunarmoment , @akindofmagictoo​ , @yejiwritesthings​ !!! Defend with these words!! // burn , belong , brush , bright  , believe .

 / all excerpts from TO FORGET A PRINCE /

SIGH //

“I didn’t do anything,” Yulei said finally, but might have been lying.

“You jacked up the altar!” Haithe shouted. She tossed her arms when she spoke, disheveled uniform crumpled at her elbows, sleeves without rank or sigil and still glaring with the passion of a blood feud. “And then everything just rearranged into something else, even if it smells like the same piss—”

“We’re only deeper inside the canyon,” Diorre insisted.

“We’re far from the canyon.”

“No,” he told Monik, relentlessly calm, “this wall must hide the way back.” Diorre gave the cave a tentative push, then a few well-meaning shoves, and one hard press with the full strain of his shoulders. He scoffed at the audacity. “Then there must be another way to the temple.”

“Maybe this is the temple,” Kon said.

Ahead of them, the torch-guided passage sighed in anticipation. It sang like an invitation.

SHAKE //

For a slice of a moment, the stone chilled in her palm. Yulei dropped it as her breath caught, and the stone landed in the grass with a thud much heavier than it felt.

“What’s wrong?”

Yulei swallowed. “It just surprised me...”

But the sudden crisp CRACK surprised her more. The stone split down the middle, spewing flakes. Both Yulei and Kon scrambled to stand, momentarily breathless, but before either managed an inhale—a terrible whine drowned her.

Yulei doubled over, gasping, gagging, a shock splitting her thoughts like a shriek of lightning and convulsive thunder. She felt Kon grab her shoulder and shake—the hurricane worsened, nausea crawled up her throat—and with a starved breath, Yulei forced her eyes open.

And found it was utterly silent. And the grasslands were gone.

SHIVER //

A shiver seized him. The hallway was terribly cold. It showed along the walls in swirling patterns of frost and frosted the breath along his lips, although the Further left Nara so feverish he was slow to notice.

Still crouched beside him, the woman released a long exhale. “I don’t know where we are. Or where anyone else is.” She glimpsed at him, then turned again. “I don’t even know who you are.”

“If the Further didn’t kill them, the others won’t be far,” Nara said. “That emblem was mostly bluster.”

“Whatever you say.” She tapped her nose.

Lifting a hand to his, Nara pulled away with blood on his fingers.

STICK //

Twelve years ago, Nara visited the Graveyard for his very first meeting with an outlaw client, and his teacher gave him the lead. Nara was charmingly certain he had everything under control. That was the first time he was stabbed. “Wish it pierced your kidneys instead, boy. You deserve worse for not holding your tongue.” But the shiv hurt plenty sticking from the muscles in his back, and so Nara learned to keep his tongue silver and meticulous.

SMILE //

She crooked an elbow over her nose and ignored the mutterings behind her. She wove through the debris without touching any of the frayed support beams. Sand stung her eyes and dulled her progress, but the pulse in her heart sharpened as the distance closed. An old friend and an old wound, Yulei trusted the song of arcane even inside the Khyvenek.  

A flat, purposely carved wall waited at the dead end. And there was the anticipated door, grounded inside the stone on four golden beams. The final torch sizzled beside it.

Yulei allowed herself a broad, haughty smile. With minimal condescension, she eventually persuaded the Steelguard to look for themselves. They entered the shambled passage with ample complaint.

Kon arrived at her side first, brow rumpled at the sight. “I… missed this. Somehow.”

SINCE //

The furtherblood academy was constructed roughly eight centuries ago and most of the place looked a century worse. Lichen and purple-leafed vines shrouded every surface. The streets were built narrow and crooked, leading Yulei through bursts of garden and under root-twisted archways. Hulking gnarls of birch patched the most timeworn of the original white stonework, and ever since the inferno ninety-four years ago that claimed four class halls and most of the north stables, smoke lingered behind every scent. Plenty of the place was a safety hazard, but nobody argued much for rebuilding. Academy scholars insisted the buildings were historic, and the guilds with any heft in their pocket scoffed at funding such a project; they dreaded the annual donation quite enough.

MIND //

“It’s not a lie, the further calls to… wait.” Yulei halted, eye catching on one of the paintings. “This one isn’t a portrait.”

It was a landscape: brush strokes heavy and illustrating a cavern in vibrant oils, the cave walls serrated by belts of gleaming crystal. It had a simple frame and hung just above her shoulders. When Yulei moved to inspect the painting, her neck bristled. Her skin itched. Like something watching.

Breath leaping at the unfamiliar brush of further, she swiveled around – but nothing paid her mind.

Except for the hundreds of oil portraits, each with glowering eyes.

Except for Kon, now staring at her. “You think it means something?”

OPEN //

The morning began pleasantly enough – Nara woke with the usual degree of aching bones and bedhead, and early enough to brew tea and savor the sunrise from the temple’s porch. But a messenger arrived around his sixth sip; throwing open the garden gate with an expression warped by bad news.

“Disaster, Nara, tragedy and disaster! You must come quick!”

Grudgingly, Nara lowered his mug.

CRUEL //

“Sounds like a wise man.”

“Sometimes.” Yulei scratched at her wrists again. “Arie was mostly arrogant. Called me his hopeless case. He was really hard to impress.”

In the wake of the words, Yulei’s expression shuttered. She teased her lips to a grin that didn’t carry substance, and the warm memory faded from her eyes when she looked at Nara again.

Deflective, she said, “Bet you had a wise teacher, too.”

“I did.”

Yulei waited.

Everything Nara could say about Kesiro boiled in his mouth. Nara managed only, “He preferred the further’s cruelty.”

SMIRK //

Hovering between skeptical and contemplative, Yulei studied Kon; his sides bare of weapons, the casual clothing and small fungi lantern, and her gaze settled on the steadfast shine in his eyes. “You’re really here for a friendly conversation?”

“Yes.”

“What makes you think I want to talk?”

“You’re always talking.”

“You’ve only got ten minutes, then the guard returns for a head count.”

When Kon glanced cautiously down the hall, Yulei laughed.

“Well, well, maybe you are here in secret.” A smirk tugged one corner of her mouth. “I wonder how Patri would feel if he found out.”