The world reacted to Storm being alive with violence.
Riots bristled in front of Bloom embassies in every nation. Letters were penned to families and friends. Suicide rates soared. Families dug out underground bunkers. Children began to sing new songs about death and decay. The Bloom couldn't control it all, so they put entire cities on lockdown. Officials rimmed the streets with knives hidden inside every article of clothing, their hands splayed before them, ready for attack. Curfews were set in place; whole families were arrested if even one member of that family was involved in an uproar.
Balalaika had the perfect word to describe this: Teskesh. Directly translated, it means falling apart, piece by piece.
No one had any idea what was going on in the Bloom Congregation Center, not at first. Everything felt normal as night descended upon Balalaika while workers in the Center killed each other because of a woman's beautiful voice.
By the end of the night, two hundred Congregation workers were dead. By the next night, another twenty were murdered. And by the third...well, by the third day, everything had gone quiet within the building and Balalaika panicked in the form of riots, violence, and throwing up measly metal walls that made them feel safe.
Teskesh, everyone in Balalaika whispered. Teskesh on us all.
***
Magic is a sassy thing when it wants to be.
It flows through the Shifter World the way vessels carry blood throughout the body: with precise direction and a mind of its own. It does exactly what it wants, whenever it wants, as long as it keeps the world working. For this reason, it is impossible to understand every single thing magic does. It lives by its own set of rules and does not bow to science or the mathematical laws that flow beneath the surface of what is visible to the naked eye. Sometimes magic breathes gently upon worlds; other times, it comes crashing in like a hurricane. \
Magic is alive. Magic has a spirit.
Across the globe, magic ground its teeth and shuddered as beasts descended upon Elliott Way.
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The War of Elevens| Book 1 of the Space Thief Chronicles
FantasyThis is the story of how a storm and a space-thief started an apocalypse. Lillian Cart Ci, a spunky thirteen-year-old girl with a newfound ability to steal from space, must leave Earth after she is blackmailed into joining the army for an upcoming...
