Valien and I sleep well most nights, and as for our few nightmares—we are only mortal. We have our uncertainties, our fears as well as our joys. And some nights I still dream of Rhiel. I think he might, too.
But we also dream of a new Goddess—or God, it is hard to tell from the face of a child in dreams, though it hardly matters. Our child is coming, and it might shape the destiny of the world.
If there is such a thing as destiny.
What is the answer to fate? A choice.
Four months yet. Sometimes I feel I cannot wait. I so look forward to seeing that face in the flesh.
Sometimes—rarely, it must be admitted, but sometimes—a burst of bright laughter echoes through the corridors of Datheiren Keep. The stone walls absorb its husky tone, the occasional catch that might betray inexperience with hilarity; the effect is only a sourceless, almost enviable sound of joy.
Copyright © 2011 Therese Arkenberg
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Therese Arkenberg is a student at Carroll University in Wisconsin. Her fiction has previously appeared in Crossed Genres, Every Day Fiction, and the anthologies All About Eve, Things We Are Not, Thoughtcrime Experiments, Warrior Wisewoman 3, and Sword and Sorceress XXIV. Her novella Aqua Vitae will be published by WolfSinger Publications later this year. Several of her short stories are also available at AnthologyBuilder.com She still blogs sporadically at http://mumbling-sage.livejournal.com/.
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COVER ART
Tina Marie Lane is a Environment Designer and 3D Artist with eleven years of professional experience in designing architecture and retail environments. Her freelance work delves into these areas as well as fantasy environments for games and literature. Recently her work has appeared in 3D Artist Magazine and can also be found at her website www.toyrocket3d.com. She fashions her worlds, both real and imagined, from Dallas, Texas.
Beneath Ceaseless Skies
ISSN: 1946-1046
Published by Firkin Press,
a 501(c)3 Non-Profit Literary Organization
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