1. Lysanne Shard

    Private One and done

    The room was smaller than one might expect for a noble supper, not the grand feasting hall with its echoing stone vaults and banners. Its walls were raw mountain, uneven in places. The walls were artfully lit with sconces, scattering soft and refracted light. It made the gemstone pockets...
  2. Lysanne Shard

    Private Sink your teeth

    His sudden caution, his reluctance to burn the boy too soon… Interesting. How the old warhound still had surprises buried under all that loyal sinew. Her hand rested lightly on the stone beside him, fingers pale against the dark lichen-crusted battlement. Her violet eyes remained on him, not the...
  3. Lysanne Shard

    Private Sink your teeth

    'Oh, my dear, sweet Lysanne!' How quaint. Being addressed so intimately might have offended another. A trace of amusement flickered in her violet eyes. Lysanne let her bloodied fingers rest in his hands as he wrapped the linen around her palm. “You have no idea what I enjoy,” she murmured...
  4. Lysanne Shard

    Private Granite

    Just as the final escape route was about to be sealed, as the ore bucket creaked above, poised to fall, and the dwarf named Brunn shifted his footing, half a second from striking, a voice cut split the chamber, like a landslide breaking loose down a mountainside. "Hold." Every dwarf halted...
  5. Lysanne Shard

    Private Sink your teeth

    Jan spoke like a soldier, always did. Doors ajar. Sentry posts unmanned. Cute. “Mm. You think in breaches and battlements,” she said, her voice low, curling at the edges like smoke off a funeral pyre. “That’s how you survive men like my father, isn’t it? Watch the walls. Pretend the danger comes...
  6. Lysanne Shard

    Open Glitterwake

    Lysanne tilted her chin at the boldness, violet eyes glittering with amusement rather than offence. The softest twitch of a smile curved her painted mouth, half approval, half intrigued. So he had teeth under that polished shell, did he? “I daresay even your undershirt carries more style than...
  7. Lysanne Shard

    Private Sink your teeth

    The wind bit harder as they ascended. It tore at her sleeves and tugged strands of dark hair loose from a coiffure that had taken her handmaid the better part of an hour to arrange. Pins, oils, braids and all to shape into the precise image Lysanne allowed the world to see: effortless, composed...
  8. Lysanne Shard

    Private Friendship, Perchance

    She tried not to acknowledge his awkward pause, but a knowing smile tug at one corner of her mouth. Lysanne’s eyes lingered on the tapestry beside which they passed her fingers brushing lightly along the edge, careful not to disturb the weave. The gold and silver threads caught the candlelight...
  9. Lysanne Shard

    Private Sink your teeth

    The courtyard reeked of steel, horse sweat, and the dry dust kicked up by booted feet. A line of Ashcloaks drilled with spears, their black cloaks snapping in the wind. Lysanne cut a dark shape against the pale stone. From the shadow of the arched entryway, she watched them for a moment, the...
  10. Lysanne Shard

    Private One and done

    You made me wait... for him? Of all the dullards who could have stalled her invitation… it had to be that sweating piece of provincial mildew. That rotting relic clinging to a broken title like a drowning man to driftwood. “How unfortunate.” she said, her tone velvet, nearly warm. Lysanne did...
  11. Lysanne Shard

    Private One and done

    The wind came crawling down from the mountains, it swept low across the stony Tourmalet hills, dragging with it the stench of peat and river mist, and the tang of iron-rich soil. Eagles traced lazy circles above the rust-colored moorland, their wings catching the last heat of the sun. Rain had...
  12. Lysanne Shard

    Private Friendship, Perchance

    Not being ready wasn't in her book. Lysanne's first act upon reaching the quarters had been to dismiss every servant save her own handmaidens. Second, the bath. She had sank into the steaming water drawn from Rodhan’s wells, laced with oils of vanilla and crushed juniper. The heat flushed her...
  13. Lysanne Shard

    Open Blood & Cheese

    The horns blew at first light. Not the grand trumpets of kings, but the shriller kind. Hunting horns, rough silver dented at the mouth, blowing out across the valleys like geese disturbed from sleep. Lysanne Shard adjusted her glove and nudged her palfrey forward. The beast snorted at the cold...
  14. Lysanne Shard

    Private Granite

    The moment Kla's voice echoed off the stone, the effect was instant. The dwarves froze. Tools dropped. Metal scraped. The talking cut off like a throat slit. Callous, big hands creeping toward weapons. “The fuck’s this now?” Brunn stood slowly, his hand on his weapon. “You one o’ hers?” His...
  15. Lysanne Shard

    Private Granite

    The tunnel’s maw closed behind them like the gullet of some ancient beast. Within, there was no room for pride or to stand upright. There was only room for breath, grit, and the scrape of bare skin against cold stone. Each step forward was a crawl, elbows and bellies grinding on rough stone...
  16. Lysanne Shard

    Open Glitterwake

    Lyssanne tilted her head ever so slightly, watching the Queen’s Alchemist lower himself to the floor with all the gallantry of a man of his station. The hem of her gown, darkened with streaks of wine, rested in his palm like a dead dove. Soft, fragile, and stained beyond repair. Inside...
  17. Lysanne Shard

    Private Granite

    The trail of salt hissed faintly as it scattered across damp stone, a pale line dusting the tunnel floor. The deeper they pressed into the bowels of Bloodvein, the tighter the air grew, thick and cold the damp tang of disturbed mountain. And beneath that… the drums. Not war drums, not quite...
  18. Lysanne Shard

    Private Granite

    There was no lady here to see them off, no violet gaze watching brave men and women descend into the earth, no parting words from Lysanne. The last of the stones shift away with a dull grinding crunch, revealing the hidden shaft, a cramped passage carved long ago. Cold, damp air rolls out...
  19. Lysanne Shard

    Open Glitterwake

    Lyssanne stood very still. She looked down. She exhaled once, slow, silent and gathered her face into something calm. Then up. And smiled. “Oh,” she said at once, voice soft and full of regret. “I am so terribly sorry, Master Alchemist!” The wine soaked through the front of the man's doublet...
  20. Lysanne Shard

    Private Granite

    “How tragic..” she murmured, lifting her goblet “...to inherit only hatred when there are so many better heirlooms." She smirked and drank. Unhurried, lips brushing the rim like a lover’s ear and then lowered the glass to the table with a faint click. Lysanne did not rise. She watched his...
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