Not long after her lullaby, the boy slipped into his dreams. She padded out of his room and sat at her table by the candlelight. She remained there longer than she knew. Outside, the clouds stole over the moon, but she never stirred. She was lost in thought, wondering for Hunter’s father. She worried she might never learn his fate, never know whether the Wolde had slain him all those years ago.
It was then, even as she rose to finally seek her bed, the house’s door rattled on its hinges. She had never been one to be caught off guard, but the sound startled her. Smoothing her worn dress to her hips and stepping lightly to the front of the house, she cracked the door a finger’s width open.
“Hello?” She peered outside, seeing only the shadow of a man on the porch. “Awfully late for a visit, don’t you think?”
“Nephi, Nephi,” said the shadow. “Is that you I smell? A Yrul princess, so far from home?”
Her breath caught in her throat. The scents beyond the door, sweaty, oily, and rank, stung her nose the same as rancid meat.
“Who are you?” she asked. “Have you no lantern? Might you return in the morning?”
The shadow smacked his lips and shifted his considerable bulk. The distinct sound of glass clinking echoed his every movement. She shuddered. She wished she had a sword.
“I might, I might,” the shadow clucked. “The morn is so pretty. But what better time than now? Is it true, pretty princess, you have a son? His name be Hunter, if I remember rightly.”
She swallowed a lump in her throat. The night was hardly cold, but shivers had claimed her.
“Who are you? Why are you here?” Her voiced cracked.
The shadow stirred again. The sounds of clinking glass rang like little bells in the darkness. “Don’t be afraid, Nephi,” the man gurgled. “I only want to meet your boy. There’s a rumor on the wind, a whisper from the darkness between the stars. Hunter, Hunter, they say. Conceived where the sun never shines. So tell me, my pretty princess, are his eyes grey like slate? Does he see things no one else can see? What of the sky? Does he watch, waiting, always waiting? Do his wounds heal in a half-breath’s span. Tell me, tell me. I want to know.”
Though in the dead of summer, the breeze blew colder. Her door creaked wider than she meant it to. Clouds, hidden behind the hills only ten breaths ago, blacked out the stars. A hand, fat and stinking, reached across the little house’s threshold.
About the author
A reader of mass quantities of fantasy and sci-fi, J Edward Neill became obsessed with writing fiction in 2001. On one bitterly cold morning in the lowest corridor of his candlelit man-cave, he set fingers to keyboard and began hammering away on what would become a much larger project than he ever imagined. Since that day, he has spent all his free time lost in his daydreams, conjuring ways to write the kind of stories he always loved as a child. When he's not glooming in front of his laptop or iPad, J Edward haunts the internet via his websites: TesseraGuild.com and DowntheDarkPath.com.
While writing is his prime passion, J also has a powerful affinity for esoteric art, quirky foreign films, and drowning helpless canvasses with his paintings. He currently haunts the 'burbs of North Georgia, where he moonlights as a foodie, a sipper of too much pinot noir, and the hugest-armed quarterback never to sniff the NFL.
More works by J Edward Neill
Down the Dark Path – Book I in the Tyrants of the Dead trilogy (4 Part Series)
Dark Moon Daughter – Book II in the Tyrants of the Dead trilogy
Nether Kingdom – Book III in the Tyrants of the Dead trilogy
The Sleepers – A Sci-Fi Horror Short
Hollow Empire – A post-apocalyptic serial co-authored with John McGuire
Machina Obscurum – A Collection of Small Shadows
A Door Never Dreamed Of
101 Questions for Humanity
101 Deeper, Darker Questions for Humanity
101 Questions for Men
101 Questions for Women
101 Questions for Midnight
101 Sex Questions
444 Questions for the Universe
Coming soon…
Darkness Between the Stars – Prequel to the Tyrants of the Dead Trilogy
Nether Kingdom Page 59
