“Guilty.” The Grace’s word reverberated through the Hall. The Grace of Fom, an angular, thin woman with hair and eyes the color of unpolished iron, waited for the echo of her verdict to die before continuing. “General Albertus Mann, you are condemned to the Pit for public viewing until dead, for sedition, treason, and the […]
The Black Wall: Chapter One
The Invasion: Six Months Before the Verdict Bodies lay strewn, pale against the rich brown ground. Blood muddied the soil between the trunks of massive trees, churned until its hue matched the broad, fern-like leaves grasping the sky. Long-beaked scavenger birds, red breasted with gleaming black wings, hunched in the lower branches, silent and waiting. […]