The gardener in front of them cut a strange figure, her pockets wriggling.   Raizel bowed politely anyway. If she had learned anything so far on this trip it was that she might find the god-touch or even stranger things in places she was expecting nothing of the sort.  “I, uh.  I offer apology?  We… Continue reading Twenty: The Kitten

“For people who know about this thing—” the Diamond Raven warned. “For people to know about it is truth!  Is all of us who rotted for the Tzar laid to rest!  Is everything that went wrong put better!”  The deserter was foaming at the mouth.  Raizel took a step back.  He only spoke louder.  “This… Continue reading Nineteen: Evil and Escape

“No!!” The deserter shook his head, more as if to clear a bug from his ear than to negate a thought. “Not for me.  ‘No aid for deserters,’ I know so well.  Do it for the nation, then.”  He pulled a tattered old piece of paper from an inner pocket. No, she realized, vellum.  “Do… Continue reading Eighteen: Treason and Heresy