Rain, Chronicles of the Third Realm Wars #0 Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Reviews

  Copyright

  Author Notes

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  After the End

  Excerpt: MUD

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Additional Titles

  PRAISE FOR THE

  WORKS OF E. J. WENSTROM

  “Wenstrom’s debut is the catalyst for a planned series of fantasy war tales, kicked off with this thoroughly expanded retelling of the Orpheus myth...the clever use of weathered fantasy tropes and occasionally lovely turns of phrase will propel readers into book two.”

  - Publishers Weekly

  “MUD, I loved this book!! So unique so engaging, a Keeper and must read!!”

  - Nelsonville Public Library, Heather Bennett

  “I really like books about uncommon supernatural creatures, so, when I saw MUD had a golem as the protagonist, I jumped at the chance to read it. A well-written and enjoyable read.”

  - Metaphors and Moonlight, Kristen Burns

  “There's something primal in MUD. It's a reverent, mythical story of supernatural beings who justify desperate measures in their quest to feel complete. They struggle with emotions we all understand, even as they challenge the very rules that govern all of creation.”

  - Fantasy Author, Robert Wiesehan

  RAIN

  Chronicles of the Third Realm War: Novella 0.5

  By

  E. J. Wenstrom

  ***

  Copyright 2016 E. J. Wenstrom

  Cover Design by Heather McCorkle & Tina Moss. All stock photos licensed appropriately.

  Published in the United States by City Owl Press.

  www.cityowlpress.com

  For information on subsidiary rights, please contact the publisher at [email protected]

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior consent and permission of the publisher.

  Keep reading the Chronicles of the Third Realm War series with novel 1: MUD.

  Torn apart by war and abandoned by the gods, only one hope remains

  to save humanity. But the savior isn’t human at all…

  “Twisting and turning, Mud won’t let itself be defined or outsmarted … I’m hopelessly addicted.”

  –Frances Carden, Readers Lane

  "I really like books about uncommon supernatural creatures, so, when I saw MUD had a golem as the protagonist, I jumped at the chance to read it. A well-written and enjoyable read."

  –Kristen Burns, Metaphors and Moonlight

  "There's something primal in Mud. It's a reverent, mythical story of supernatural beings who justify desperate measures in their quest to feel complete."

  –Fantasy Author, Robert Wiesehan

  BUY NOW!

  For Pippi,

  who cuddled up with me every day while I wrote this,

  kept the barking to a minimum, and sometimes hogged the blanket.

  And for Christopher, always.

  - E. J.

  CHAPTER 1

  IT HAPPENED BEFORE I could stop myself—my hand reached out and stroked the angel Calipher’s wing. It seemed perfectly harmless.

  As my fingers reached into the soft feathers, a surge of peace broke through me like an unexpected breeze. When I pulled away, the vacuum it left behind flooded with shame. I realized, too late, I’d stolen something I had no right to.

  Now, Calipher turns around, searching.

  “Who did it?” he demands. His wings, like great founts of silver sprouting from his shoulders, bristle. “Who touched my wing?”

  My heart pounds and my chest floods with panic. I want to run and hide, but my feet are planted to the ground as if roots have sprouted from them and bind me here.

  What is wrong with me? I should never have touched him. But his aura gives off what I crave most—more today than ever. Deep peace pours out of him, like the quiet trickle of a forest creek.

  Heat rushes to my face, and I am sure a deep flush will give me away.

  “Who touched my wing?” Calipher repeats.

  Tousled golden locks fall onto his face, which is cast in shadow under his furrowed brow. The feathers of his wings quiver and pull away from his back.

  He is glorious and beautiful and terrible. For the first time in all the years since the goddess Theia sent him to us, I am afraid of him.

  I have always been jealous of the way he could fly away and soar through the skies any time the realm of Terath might become too much for him. When I was a young girl, his wings seemed like the most magnificent things that could ever be, the way they spread around him, bright and gleaming. He seemed like the most magnificent thing that could ever be. He still does. I wanted that magnificence for myself.

  Calipher’s great shadow casts about as he turns to look for the culprit. He is larger than any human, and perfectly lean and tall. His skin glows pale as the moon, and his great silvery wings spread wide, the tips catching the morning sun with an orange glint, like embers at the edge of a fire. He is wild and alive, and he has never looked more enthralling.

  It makes me want to touch him all over again.

  The busy morning villagers—Shara, who I just traded with, Taavi, our closest neighbor and fellow farmer, all of them—step away, creating a halo of space between him and the crowd. As always, they are afraid of him. Afraid of his large-ness. Afraid of his magic. Of his wings and his glow and all that makes him beautiful. They are afraid of his other-ness, and all it implies.

  “Come forth,” Calipher urges. “Who was it?”

  The others back away more, murmuring among themselves in fear. I’m the only one who doesn’t, transfixed by his ire.

  He turns slowly, looking over the gathering crowd. He looks right past me into the mass of faces.

  He is so close, close enough to reach out and touch again, and yet still he barely even sees me. I can’t bear it anymore.

  “It was me.” I have to force the words out. They crash around me and shatter like clay pots.

  In their wake, the most painful kind of silence falls over the village center. Calipher stops his pacing. He stares at me. They all do.

  My face burns with shame and I can’t bear to hold his gaze. What is wrong with me? Why, this day of all days, could I no longer bear it?

  After all these years, with day after day of pain piling onto my soul, I could not stand to not touch him any longer.

  I woke up this morning to find Mother had disappeared again.

  Mother does not disappear in the typical way, where a person cannot be found. For her, it is more as though she drowns inside herself, and her body becomes an empty shell. Even after all these years, my father’s death still f
esters inside her like an infected wound. It is as if she spends her life treading water, fighting to keep herself at the surface. And then sometimes she gets too tired, and the pain overcomes her, and she drowns.

  When she drowns, I am not even there in her eyes. Nothing is there, except my father’s absence. She fumbles through her days barely seeing the next step in front of her, blindly stumbling through her routine.

  I try to let it be, when Mother disappears. There is nothing to be done about it. It simply is, like the tides. But I feel my father’s absence, too. It burns at me like coals trapped in a furnace. When she drowns, the silence she leaves behind burns inside me, each time a little deeper into my soul.

  The release of touching Calipher’s wing was one I needed desperately.

  And now?

  I do not know what now. But I cannot imagine I will have the courage to get close enough to him ever again to feel even the periphery of his aura.

  But I cannot bear to be here anymore, facing the bewilderment that wrinkles Calipher’s brow.

  I turn and shove my way through the collecting crowd. It is too much, and I have to get away, a stinging shame coursing through me.

  Could I have held back, if I had known the chaos my small moment of indulgence would lead to? If I am honest with myself, I am not sure. Even with the harsh glares and mystified glances people give me as I shove past them, that small moment when his peace rushed over me—it was just what my soul needed.

  My feet propel me away from Calipher, away from the village, into the forgiving cover of the forest. Only when I am enclosed in its depths do I stop and catch my breath.

  As my breathing steadies and I begin to walk again, a shadow rushes around me, then pulls together into a figure at my side.

  “Not now, Bastus.”

  I glance at him. His icy blue eyes are completely blank—the only thing that gives him away as a demon, rather than a human—but the rest of his face is solemn.

  “Nia,” he greets me. He studies my face and tilts his head. “What troubles you? Is Liora at it again?”

  Bastus knows more than most what my mother is. He was there when my father died years ago, and he watched with me as something in her died along with him.

  “Yes,” I reply. “But this isn’t about Mother.”

  Standing so close, I can feel his aura vibrating off of his skin. He’s a creature of Shael, god of chaos. While Calipher’s aura is so soothing, Bastus’ strains me with restlessness.

  “What is it, then?”

  He means to help, but his aura goes where he goes, like a shadow. It is like a poker shaking up embers from the coals, waking up the things inside me that I try to suppress.

  “It’s nothing.” I sigh.

  I lie to him reflexively, even though I know he won’t believe me.

  He folds his arms over his chest, accentuating his strong, square shoulders, and waits. Loose locks of thick, dark hair frame a brooding face. His brow steeps heavily over his eyes, casting them in shadow.

  Some call him handsome, but to me he seems so typical, so human. He is nothing compared to Calipher’s glowing perfection. Why would a demon, who could choose any form he imagined, choose to be something so typical?

  And yet he is never anything but kind to me. It’s not fair, the way I keep him at arm’s length.

  “Did something else happen?” he presses.

  The heat rushes to my face again. I can’t bear to say it out loud.

  “Don’t you have something else you could do?” The sharpness of my voice stops him in his tracks. He looks down to the dirt, and guilt floods me. I take a breath, ready to apologize.

  “Nia?” a velvety voice interrupts from behind us.

  My chest seizes. It is Calipher.

  My bottom lip trembles as I turn around.

  “I didn’t mean to,” I plead.

  At least, I did not mean for him to notice.

  For the first time, the peace emanating from him isn’t enough. I am distressed beyond its comfort. My fingers beg to touch him again, to let the rush of peace blow away all the bad things inside me. I clutch my hands together to stop myself.

  “What is going on?” Bastus steps half in front of me. He has never trusted the angels, not even the one he has worked alongside in this village for so many years. He looks to me. “Nia, what happened?”

  He has that look on his face again—an expression that is so much more than concern, a mix of empathy and longing and a strange kind of hunger. It is a look that makes me embarrassed for him, though I have no reason to be.

  “Bastus, go.”

  Bastus glances at me one more time, a reproachful look full of injury. His unsettling aura buzzes through me, competing with Calipher’s peaceful one.

  “Please,” I say. It takes some effort to keep my expression steady while his blank eyes study my face.

  He considers, then nods.

  He breaks apart into shadow and whooshes away. When the last of his aura stops buzzing through me, I turn to Calipher.

  ****

  We make our way through the woods side by side. This is all I wanted, to soak up his aura and feel this great calm again. To be close to him. But now distress hums underneath it.

  “Why did you do it?” he asks.

  My heart races. I can’t bear to say it, it is so terribly embarrassing.

  “I am so sorry,” I whisper.

  A tear drops down my cheek, heightening my embarrassment.

  But then, Calipher smiles. It is as if the sun has chosen to single me out, of all of the people of the realm. I soak it up as if I have been freezing in the darkness of night all my life.

  “There is nothing to apologize for,” he says.

  I let out a sigh, my throat catching on it from the stress. My mind spins—I am not in trouble? What does he want from me, then?

  “But I do wish to know why you did it. Please. Tell me,” he says.

  I will my eyes to look up again and get lost in his gaze.

  When a person is with you, they are right there with you, in that moment only. But angels—it is as if the time and place they are in do not bind them. As if they see something beyond them. Even as Calipher smiles down at me, he seems far away and distant, his eyes are relaxed and unfocused.

  Is he listening to Theia? Or to the realm shifting under our feet? The whispers of the trees?

  “I….”

  How can I possibly explain to him? I am not fully sure myself. I just needed a small piece of his aura so badly. I can’t bear his gentle expression any longer and drop my gaze to the forest floor.

  “I just needed the peace you give off.”

  Calipher’s smile melts away into a thin, straight line. “Do you not have peace of your own?”

  It is like being stripped naked. “No.”

  “And when you touched me, did you get the peace you sought?”

  “Oh, yes.” The unexpected enthusiasm in my voice sounds crass. I bite my lip to stop myself from saying more.

  His eyes drift off and his great wings bristle, as if he is lost in great thoughts.

  He opens his mouth to speak, and I am afraid of what he will ask next, afraid I will have to explain to him the things in my life that keep peace away. But he doesn’t ask.

  “When you touched me, I felt something, too,” he says. “Something I have never felt before.”

  My mouth drops open. How could I possibly stir anything in him, this great First Creature of the gods?

  For a moment we just stand there, staring at each other.

  “Has no one touched you before?”

  I realize as I say it just all that means—not one hug, not a friendly stroke of a shoulder, no pressing of hands. And yet, it is not so surprising. Most of the people have feared and distrusted him since he arrived. Even the ones who have nothing against him are wary of his other-ness.

  But right now, Calipher seems less like a great First Creature and more like a broken bird. His wings are pulled into him tight and
his shoulders are tense.

  His gaze drifts off, traveling to somewhere far away. I grapple for something else to ask, something to keep him here with me.

  “What did it feel like for you, when I touched your wing?”

  “It felt like….” He frowns. A sweet crinkle forms between his brows, a single imperfection so beautiful it makes him even more perfect. “It stirred me up. It was like a craving. It was a hunger of the spirit.”

  It sounds so much like the strained currents that flow through me most of the time. A restless sense that there must be more out there, somewhere. Something better, something good, if only I knew where to look.

  I look down, my hair falling from my shoulders and around my face. “I’m so sorry. If I had known my touch would make you feel this way, I would not have done it. I—”

  But he stretches his hand out in a gesture to quiet me.

  “You misunderstand. This feeling, it was strange. But it was like waking up.”

  “You…you liked it?” I stutter.

  “It was almost as though I had my own Will, outside of Theia’s. As if I could become my own being.”

  I’ve never fully understood the angels’ tie to their goddess. They are individual beings, and yet somehow Theia’s Will is planted within them as if it were their own. Is it possible that they do not like it that way?

  Confusion clogs my thoughts. I am completely bewildered by this turn of events—the entire morning.