Page 4 of The Song of Sunrise
He takes my place on the stage, crumpling his fists so hard his knuckles turn white.
“SILENCE!” Marrow commands. His voice at full volume swallows the room whole.
Everyone stops arguing at once.
“Such disrespect for my Prentice will not be tolerated. I will finish theTale of the Breaking, but then we are done performing for the evening.”
A foolish patron lets out a large groan of displeasure. Marrow points directly at him, eyes flaring with rage.
The man clips his mouth shut and averts his gaze.
My lip quivers, so I pinch them together in a hard line as I stand next to the stage. A small, awful part of me predicted that something like this was going to happen tonight. That I wouldn’t be offered the same amount of respect as a male Teller.
Marrow takes my place on the stage, collects himself, and begins where I left off.
“We battled each other with weapons so great,
Until there was nothing left,
Our resources depleted, our homes gone.
The Breaking, the cleaving, the cleft—”
My vision is suddenly impaired with pellets of dark red. Screams rip through the room. A growling war horn rings in the distance. I blink rapidly and wipe my face. My hands are spotted with a thick, red liquid.
Blood.
No! No, no, NO!
Marrow is crumpled on the stage floor, legs twisting awkwardly in the wrong direction.
An arrow protrudes from his chest, the wax tip designed with two crossing axes the same gory color as the blood pooling rapidly beneath him.
The world goes silent.
My mentor.
My friend.
My only semblance of a father now stares lifelessly at the ceiling.
2
Stolen Sorrow
Marrow is dead.
A dozen hulking figures burst through the doors, weapons drawn. Their bodies are draped with axes of all sizes—clipped to their belts, strapped to their backs, or tucked in their boots. Some are so massive, they peek from behind their bulky fur-laden shoulders.
Marrow is dead.
The human-like creatures are tall and filthy, dirt smeared across their faces as if they dug straight from the Underworld. A gnarled male leads them, his black hair wild, bow still trained on the stage. His face is a grotesque map of scars, stretching from temple to jaw and eyes that burn with raw, unfiltered rage.
“ATTACK!” he bellows, snatching another red-tipped arrow from his quiver.
“UNDERLINGS!”
“Grab your weapons!”
