EXCERPTS

My Viking Bride
by
Luna Carrol

 Around 850 AD 

Alvilda smoothed down her long, sensible dress and pulled her gray fur up closer to her face. The winds off of the Baltic Sea were picking up and a fine mist told of rain approaching. She nearly closed her eyes against the silver glow of the horizon. Winter would be here soon.

There it was. The longboat could be seen on the horizon. It’s huge sail proudly displaying the colors of its country. She turned after a moment and walked back to the largest longhouse in the sea village. Passing through the tall wall made of erect wooden pikes, she continued to her father’s longhouse. The King of Gotland would want to know of the Dane’s arrival.

The village was a prosperous one. There were many longhouses, most large enough to support a smaller second story. Smoke rose from nearly all the wooden structures and children ran around the village with rosy cheeks and steamy air escaping their mouths. Yes, winter drew close and soon the children would find it hard to run freely in snow and ice.

Pushing open the heavy wooden door, she found most of the mid-day supper being cleared away and all, but a few of her father’s trusted men, were gone now. The warmth of the grand room was a welcomed feeling.

Her father stood near the hearth of the large fireplace directly behind the table. Alvilda knew her mother would be supervising some new project in the house now that the biggest meal of the day was over.

He was a large man, much like all the men of Gotland. Tall, fair skinned, barrel-chested, the same light red hair of his mother was nearly gray now. The same red-gold color now adorned Alvilda’s hair. He turned from speaking to another large man as she entered the room.

“He is nearly here, Da.” She looked from her father to the older man he’d been talking to and nodded slightly.

“So, the Danish prince comes to Gotland to marry what he cannot take.”

“Aethelgar, do you know this man to be like his father?” Olaf, the large man with Alvilda’s father had always been regarded as a wise counsel man.

Groa, Alvilda’s oldest friend, entered the hall from the back door. She stopped as she overheard their discussion. Vilda and Groa had been discussing the same topic in private since they learned of the Danes’ interest.

“All the Danes and Swedes are alike, Olaf.” Her father raised his voice.

He’d learned to hate the foreigners, just like his father had. War and plundering between the people of the Baltic was something that had happened for as long as anyone could remember.

“They take by deception and conniving. There isn’t a true man amongst them.” Aethelgar pulled his beard through his hands while looking at his only daughter. “This prince will not take my only daughter.”

Alvilda nodded. The last thing she wanted to do was to marry a Dane. A man that would take her from her people and be hated by those same people. No, she would do what she had to in order to avoid such a marriage.

“It will be a test then, Aethel?” Olaf often shortened Aethelgar’s name as he spoke.

“Yes. As it was with the others.”

Alvilda hated the tests. She was locked into the sea room. A special cave used for these tests. Located at the edge of the sea, the tide fed into the cave, encircling her. Beyond the water’s edge would be another trench. This trench, the first for any man to traverse, would be filled with vipers. Two vipers, said to be blessed by Loki himself because of their immense size. Almost as long as any good Viking boat, and nearly as thick.

Any man who could survive such vipers had only the icy waters of the Baltic Sea to cover. A task not so easy after one’s nerves and metal were tested by the snakes. The temperature of the water could cause a man to cramp and sink while shivering.

Vilda would be trapped in the room herself, in the very center, until the water washed back out, and being trapped at the water’s edge when the temperature dropped was nothing to relish. It could be day or night; since they had no way of predicting when the water would begin rising and it had to be deep enough to test a man.

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The Seventh Legend
by Mila Ramos 

 Chapter One 

Her skin tingled with an eerie awareness. The evil felt near. She would find him, it, soon…A beeping noise disturbed her concentration. Alana tapped the communications earpiece clipped to her ear. Her sister Maggie spoke volumes of warning, frustrating Alana in the process. Great timing, sis, Alana thought.

“Alana, you need to come back to the house.” Static followed the transmission.

 “I’ll be back momentarily. I just want to see if it is him,” she replied as the rain continued to pour.

 “Alana, it’s not him. You know it can’t be.”

 “I’m sure I know who the Viscount is, Maggie. Let me just check this out. I need to be positive.”

 “As your sister, I completely object to you walking into that club without proper backup. I’m sending Drew.”

Shaking her head, she scanned again. “And as your sister, I’m the one that’s been gifted. So I think I’ll be fine.”

 “Alana don’t --”

 “Cutting transmission,” she stated, as she touched her earpiece and continued her visual scan.

She sat perched high above the buildings still as the stone gargoyles. Rain steadily danced down onto the rooftops and streets of the city below while lightning lit the night sky. Varying tunes of water collecting in the building gutters changed as they ran down their gulley and spilled to puddles on the city streets. Cars sped down the street and threw water in every direction, adding more water to the already soaked walker-bys.

The world moved as normal; people crossed streets, entered and left cars, buildings and continued with their lives unaware of the lone figure above with roving eyes. None of the souls below interested her, though they should have. It was her job to take care of them and protect them. Yet, her focus went to finding a particular man.

She tuned her special vision onto the facial features of every passer. Alana scanned various eye colors, facial hair, no facial hair, but none proved to be the one she wanted. Born the seventh generation of Shadow Hunter, gifted with extraordinary abilities to detect a certain type of paranormal being, Alana accepted her skill. Though she adored her gifts and they made life somewhat tolerable, they did have their tolls. Easy wouldn’t be the word she used for the things she did. Duty, yes…family obligation, hell yes, but easy was an understatement. Her family had been protectors for a long time.

The Legends were hunters in search of the evil preying on humankind. Alana came from a family rich in the history. Her family spanned over thirteen generations, the first appearing in Egypt and then moving to Europe. Mauricio Legend, her grandfather told her, when she was a child, the Legends were once believed to be actual gods, but the books of genealogy were not open for common perusal. Alana only knew of the roots as far back as the 11^th century when the family name changed to Legend.

What she knew of her family was through those on her mother’s side; the Italian side. The Legend qualities were significantly prominent in the descending female born in the following generations. Those females with the Legend last name had the signature caramel tone complexion, full, sensual, pouty lips, and soulful, dark almond shaped eyes, and athletically toned bodies graced with poise and elegance.

Taken aside by her grandfather one day while her parents had gone to town, Alana wanted to know what made her family name so special He said that the actual story started on October 14, 1066, the Battle of Hastings. Norman troops defeated the English and killed King Harold, which opened the way for William to take the throne.

An English knight, Thomas Legend, received a terrible blow to the head during that battle. Though they were going to leave him for dead, when they checked again they realized he was very much alive. When they returned him to England, he healed and they sent him home. However, the story had it that’s when his troubles started. From the moment he awoke up, he sensed thoughts of those around him. Of course those times were so much different, so he thought he was possessed.

Thomas made many trips to various shrines in England, in hopes to be cured of the voices. None helped according to the tale. Getting enough of his personal items together he took a pilgrimage to Rome, Italy. There he met and fell in love with an Italian woman Isabella Medice, and received a papal blessing to wed. Shortly thereafter, he no longer heard the voices. For the first few years things went well; he was happily in love and he never heard anything out of the ordinary.

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Silver Linings

by Mae Powers 

Xera felt the leaves of the diamente brush against her one-half bared shoulder. It was like a sharp touch, albeit how slight it scrapped her. She jerked from the tiny sting and stood back to look at the shiny, white stalked flower setting in a ruby vase. Its teardrop shaped stems and flowers glistened at her, almost angrily. With her nature attunement, she knew the richly coveted gem flowers were sensitive to Fae or human touch. She was blessed and cursed with both.

The diamente was just another reminder that she worked for the upper class of Silveran Wysps, instead of being one of their classed ilk. For all the lush beauty of the gem-tree rainforest country she lived within, she still would not have it otherwise. Her life had been good, being born to a traveling human and her half Wysp-Fae mother. They had settled in the housing branches of Silvera’s lower-middle class district subdivision of Grove-tree, and had made a decent and comfortable living. When the great quake had devastated part of Silvera, her parents had been swallowed up in the giant jaws of a crack in the earth, along with half the residents of Grove-tree. She had been away at school at the time in the sister Wysp city of Torch.

Ten years and she still had set backs with her loss. She’d finished those last few months at the Fae-wizard academy, but had immediately come back the day after graduation, when she’d finally been told that her parents had died in that awful quake.

The city of Silvera had been reconstructed and rebuilt at a fast rate over the years, and even now, she could still see inklings from the loss. The quakes were rare, and not always so devastating, but any Fae or non-Fae seer had not foretold the large one.

The diamente whispered a sway of motion as the breeze from the open shutters filtered through. She immediately went to the large bay window and slid the rare translucent glass shut, so the diamente would not get a chill upon its delicate features, which might cause one of it’s fragile petals to drop. She did not want her lofty customer to charge her with the cost of its breakage.

Sighing, she glanced around the large sitting and entertainment room. No one was around and the owners of the lush tree house condo would not be back for a few hours. She made a little movement with her hand, ever slightly, and a tiny whirl of glittering magic swirled into the room and went merrily twirling around the tree house of her rich clients. In a few minutes, it came back towards her. She held out her hand and the empath magic twirl-hopped happily into her hand. She touched it softly with her other index finger and it dwindled down to a soft purring circle in her hand before it completely disappeared.

“One must always thank magic for its help.” Her mother use to tell her, “No matter how small it’s helpful to you.” Xera couldn’t help but agree. Her father may have been human, but he also was an empathic nature being. She had been bequeathed the best of both their talents and would always be thankful for them.

Once more she glanced around the large room to make sure everything glistened and was cleaned properly. The room beamed happily at her. Even though the rich owners had wanted the human cleaning touch, she’d learned early own that homes sometimes reflected their owners and both human and magic cleaning were needed to make the house itself feel pampered and cleaned.

She walked to the front door, and it slid open waiting for her to leave. She knew it would self-lock after she left. With a shrug, she went from the spacious tree condo and out onto the wide deck. Very wide for the condo even. She had only seen one more opulently spacious than this one and that belonged to the fourth princeling Fae of Silvera. The place she was headed next. Like the owners of this condo, he was out for the day. It had said so on his magic itinerary, when his private wizard secretary had contacted her the other day to come and clean the tree-mansion while the princeling was away. He liked his privacy and didn’t have many servants.

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