The Bloomlands
## Echo Bloom The wind tasted of rust and regret. Elara knelt, fingers tracing the skeletal branches of a petrified oak. Its leaves hadn’t fallen. They *became* stone, smooth and grey against her palm. Ten days. That’s how long it…
fantasy
Read MoreThe Bloomlands
The Cartographer’s Bloom
## The Cartographer’s Bloom Rain lashed against the corrugated metal roof of Elias Thorne’s workshop, a relentless drumming that echoed the frantic beat in his chest. The scent of ozone and damp earth clung to everything, a familiar comfort layered…
The Bloom
## The Bloom The air tasted of iron and wet stone. Rain, not gentle drizzle but a solid sheet, hammered against the corrugated roof of Elias’s workshop. He ignored it, focused on the moss growing in intricate patterns across the…
The Tide-Bound
## The Tide-Bound The salt stung Elara’s lips as she hauled another net, her muscles burning with a familiar ache. Turquoise waves slapped against the hull of *The Wanderer*, their rhythm steady, constant – a deceptive calm. She squinted at…
The Weaver’s Disappearance
## The Weaver’s Disappearance The wind tasted like ash and regret. Fifteen autumns I’d spent in the Gloom Consistence, a damp chill clinging to my bones like stubborn moss. My hands, rough and calloused, scooped spectral detritus from the circular…
The Echo Weaver
## The Echo Weaver The steam rose, thick and sweet, tasting of minerals and ancient stone. Elara brushed it away from her face, focusing on the low thrum vibrating through the cavern floor. It wasn’t a steady pulse; it shifted,…
The Static Bloom
## The Static Bloom The chipped ceramic mug warmed Elias’s hands, the bitter chicory scent barely cutting through the damp cellar smell. Rain lashed against the single high window, each gust a percussion note against the stone. He traced the…
Forgotten Memories and Geological Records
The rain smelled of salt and something else—rotting kelp, maybe, clinging to the stone walls. Twilight bled across Haven’s harbor, a bruised purple and grey where the jagged cliffs met the restless sea. It wasn’t a pretty harbor, not anymore.…
The Search for the Sunstone Scale
The rain tasted like metal and salt, slick on Elisse’s skin. It hammered against the corrugated iron roofs of Ossa Bay’s marketplace, a rhythmic percussion that blended with the creak of wooden carts and the guttural calls of merchants hawking…
The Weight of Dawnbreaker
The chipped ceramic of the teacup warmed Lyric’s palms, but did little for the chill burrowing into her bones. Dust motes danced in the single shaft of light slicing through the shuttered window. Valor hadn’t walked in months. Not since…
The Severed Chord
Lysanthemum’s fingers, stained lavender from the emotion threads, trembled. Each strand pulsed with a memory, a longing, a joy—the echoes of lives connected. She’d spent decades harvesting these luminous filaments, weaving them into the grand tapestry of the city of…
Echoes of Aethelburg
The salt spray tasted like regret on Alure’s lips. Years adrift hadn’t strengthened bone, only honed edges. They traced the glyphs carved into the driftwood, fingers thin as spider silk. The wood warmed under their touch, not from sun, but…
The Severed Flow
The grit tasted of regret. Ada spat, the fine red dust coating her tongue like a second skin. Eldan hadn’t just *fallen* to the storms; it had been *eaten*. One moment, carved sandstone buildings gleamed, the next, swallowed whole by…
The Silent Giant
The chipped basalt warmed beneath Falon’s palm. It wasn’t the stone itself, though ancient and weighty, but the feel of *him* woven into it—Elio. Centuries of silence clung to the giant’s legacy, a vow stretched taut until someone saw…what, exactly?…
The Echo of Aethel
Dust motes danced in the single shaft of light slicing the gloom of the archive. Old Man Tiber, hunched like a question mark over a brittle scroll, traced a finger across faded ink. The parchment felt like dried skin under…