FaRoFeb 2025 Micro Story 2
SAPPHIC EPIC FANTASY ROMANCE
Part 1
by A.K. Mulford
The clamor of harried servants died down like the chorus of birdsong to a circling hawk. I knew it was the mage before she even appeared. The boisterous kitchens sobered to the click-clack of her shined leather boots.
Obsidian robes danced behind her like raven’s wings as she swept into the room, her hand resting on the hilt of her dagger. Death frequented the halls of our keep, carried on the wings of this mage.
With a yawn, she casually cracked the fogged window. The seaside breeze carried with it the scent of rust and briny air, along with the bitter alchemical notes of the many bottled poisons along her belt.
I focused my gaze on the roasted potatoes in front of me, but my skin tingled with her proximity. As I grabbed another sprig of rosemary, I had the distinct feeling of being watched.
I glanced up, stealing a peek at the window, only to find those midnight eyes trained upon me. Her features were sharp yet alluring, cold yet beautiful. The mage’s lips curved as if she divined my very thoughts. She cocked her head in knowing, eyes glinting in amusement.
I wondered what muscular form lurked beneath her robes, if her skin smelled of nightshade, and her blood-red lips tasted of hellebore. But most of all, I wondered if today would be the day that I’d walk over, slap my gold coin in her palm, and whisper to her the name I’d been holding onto for thirteen years.
Find A.K. Mulford’s books at www.akmulford.com.
Part 2
by Isla Elrick
Instead, I looked away.
Though the other servants carried on with their work, a definitive silence had fallen over the kitchens. Not simply the hush that followed the mage every time she passed through a room, but a stark, cold quiet that filled me with as much excitement as it did dread.
She was staring at me; I was certain. Was it the way my thick, dark hair curled at the nape of my neck, as she’d once remarked upon? She had nearly touched me when she’d said it, her fingertips a breath away from my cheek, before pulling back.
I’m glad she’d never touched me then. If she had, I would’ve unwound completely. As the days passed and we continued to skirt around one another, I was beginning to think that was the only way. The only way I could be honest after so many years of lying to everyone around me.
“Leyria.” A voice as deep and sweet as chocolate sent a shiver up my spine. All at once, I could sense her directly behind me, so close that if I turned now, we would be nose to nose. The thought made me throb.
The silence was damning. I turned my head to the side, looking over my shoulder—a compromise. “My lady.”
My compromise meant nothing to her; she leaned in nonetheless, until her chest was nearly pressed against my back. The smile in her voice was audible as she whispered in my ear. “Come, now. You know I am no ordinary mage, and I know you are no ordinary servant, witchbreaker. Call me by my name.”
No ordinary servant? Witchbreaker? My heart stopped. What did she know? “Sacrelash.”
“There,” Sacrelash purred, and I felt an ebony-clawed gauntlet wrap around my upper arm. “They are all watching, little spy. Let me take you somewhere more private and we can discuss our … mutual investment.” Her grip tightened dangerously. “Or mutual destruction. Whichever you choose.”
Find Isla Elrick’s books at www.islaelrick.com.
Part 3
by Marie Cardno
My mind raced as she led me first through familiar stone-walled corridors, then in the space between one breath and another, through tall arched hallways whose walls looked almost liquid in the light, coagulating where the shadows struck.
Witchbreaker. She knew who I was. Which meant she must know why I was here.
There hadn’t been time for me to grab any of the things I needed to handle this situation. Only my gold coin, burning against my flesh the same way it had for thirteen long years.
I gulped back an acrid taste at the back of my throat. I should have known she suspected something—that the interest in her attention hadn’t been real. It had been part of her game.
But she knew who I was, and that meant she might know everything.
We stopped at last in a vaulted room filled with light in a thousand shimmering shades, and each glint was another spell. They caught in my eyes and throat, smothering and slicing, and if Sacrelash hadn’t already known what I was, then this would be all the proof she needed.
Only a witchbreaker could survive the spells that filled a mage’s inner sanctum. Because witchbreakers had already been smothered and sliced, burned and blistered and cured against all a mage’s tricks.
For thirteen years, I had avoided this.
For thirteen years, I had lived a beautiful lie, warm and fed in the keep’s kitchen, unseen, unquestioned, my hands only scalded by the oven and my eyes only stinging from onions.
The mage was a monster. But witchbreakers were monsters, too, and for thirteen years since they sent me to break her and I found my way to the kitchens instead, I had been free.
Sacrelash pulled off her gauntlets and draped herself over a settee, limbs loose and languid, her gaze mocking. “Make yourself comfortable, witchbreaker. We have much to discuss.”
“I would prefer to stand, my la—”
She frowned, and despite my training, despite everything, my tongue stumbled. “S-Sacrelash.”
“Good girl.” The mage tipped her chin back, revealing the long column of her neck. “What an enigma you are, little Leyria. Over ten years in my keep, and not a single sad attempt on my life? Even now, not taking the opportunity to sit here next to me?”
“The farther from you I stay,” I grated out, “the easier it is for me not to kill you.”
Her smile was like nothing I had ever seen before, even in my training.
The gold coin burned beneath my bodice. I kept it next to my heart, where it hurt the most, as a reminder.
That was feeling more and more like a mistake.
“I knew we could help each other,” she purred. “And I think you owe me, don’t you, for over a decade’s safe lodging? But you’re right. There’s one thing we should get over with first.”
She crawled onto all fours, her eyes fixed on mine, and spoke the words I hadn’t heard since I left the witchbreakers’ cloister.
Fire burned in my veins. My body moved before my mind had time to shout No! and I watched, frozen, as my hand tore the coin from beneath my bodice, my knee met the mage’s chest, forcing her back, and my fingers around her throat. Her arm flung out, but I pinned it beneath my foot as I pressed the gold against her palm.
“Eclara sent me,” a voice snarled from my throat, and she laughed.
She was still laughing when I pulled the coin from her flesh, the gold disc melting and sharpening to a blessed blade, and buried it beneath her ribs.
Find Marie Cardno’s books at www.mariecardno.com.
Part 4
by Shoshana Rain
The laughing stopped. For a moment, the only sounds in the room were our own ragged breaths. Her blood coated my hand in a hot gush. I stared down at her, her blue eyes stretched wide, as though she hadn’t imagined I would do it.
My heart tore. Over a decade I’d hidden here, kept myself at arm’s length, my purpose at arm’s length. And in ten minutes alone with Sacrelash, I had come undone.
Sacrelash’s mouth curved into a smile, at once terrible and beautiful. “As I thought.”
I stumbled backward, and she sat up, pulling the blade free. The wound closed before my eyes. Faster than I could blink, faster than thought, Sacrelash was on her feet and had me pinned against the wall, her hand around my throat.
“It takes a committed heart to break a witch, my darling. Yours has wavered.” She leaned in, her nose brushing my cheek as I gasped through her hold on me. Her thumb brushed against my fluttering pulse.
I could have told her as much before we ever stepped into this room. For over ten years my heart had wavered, seeking peace and quiet over pain and retribution. Years where I’d done little more than watch her from afar, weakening my heart even further.
Her lips were so close, the heat of them bled into my skin. If she turned her head just a little, I would truly be lost.
“Are you ready to listen to my proposal now that we are past this unpleasantness?” she asked in a low purr, and her hand slackened around my throat.
Find Shoshana Rain’s books at www.shoshanarainauthor.com.
Part 5
by Laura Greenwood
I swallowed hard. There was no choice, not now that I’d failed, and she knew it as well as I did.
Sacrelash made her way over to her table of potions, her hips swaying as she did. It was impossible to take my eyes off her. She picked up a pitcher of wine and poured herself a glass. The ruby liquid glistened on her lips as she drank it down, only drawing more attention to them.
She raised an eyebrow in my direction and set her glass down. “Shall we discuss the reason you’re unable to kill me?”
I cleared my throat. “I don’t know what you mean.”
The look she gave me made it clear that she didn’t believe me. She stepped closer, bringing with her the scent of nightshade and blood along with the faint hint of the wine. Heat radiated from her body, filling the air between us and taking my thoughts in a direction they definitely shouldn’t be going to.
She was the enemy. I needed to remember that.
A smirk played on Sacrelash’s lips. “Tell me, Leyria, what is it you desire?”
I met her gaze, regretting it almost instantly. Her eyes weren’t as cold as I’d always imagined them to be, and it was almost as if they were filled with something akin to desire.
“Give in, Leyria,” she said.
“It’s forbidden.” My voice cracked as I said the words.
She moved even closer but didn’t touch me. “That makes things all the sweeter,” she promised, her breath fanning against my lips.
Without meaning to, I gave the smallest of nods. Sacrelash needed no further encouragement and closed the gap between us, brushing her lips against mine.
Something broke within me, and I reached out to pull her close, unable to think of anything but the intensity of our kiss.
Find Laura Greenwood’s books at www.authorlauragreenwood.co.uk.
Part 6
by Arizona Tape
I melted into the warmth of Sacrelash’s embrace, her lips burning like poison. She didn’t taste of hellebore though but rather something sweeter and far more dangerous. She pushed me harder into the cold stone wall while her lips moved to my neck, where she kissed the echo of her earlier grip away. I let my hands wander down her body, discovering all the soft curves she hid under those loose robes of hers. My fingers brushed over the ragged cut in her bodice, the only evidence that remained of my lacklustre attack, and it jolted me out of my haze, reminding me of my duty once more.
I pushed her away, breathless and desperate for some distance. I couldn’t think when she was this close and from the wicked smirk on her lips, she knew that very well.
This was exactly why I had stayed far, far away from her all this time.
She swept her thumb along her bottom lip, wiping away the kiss, or savouring it. “Shall I make my proposal now?”
Proposal? I tried to focus, but my head was still spinning, and all I could hear was my pounding heartbeat. Was this sorcery too?
“I don’t want to marry you,” I rebuked, although my voice didn’t come out as strong as I wanted.
Her laugh was clear like crystal and tinted with amusement. “I never knew you had such a simple mind, witchbreaker.”
Her mockery stung and helped me return to my senses, reminding me who I was facing. “Then what do you want?”
“Beside the obvious?” Sacrelash’s eyes shimmered with darkness as she held up my golden dagger, entirely unbothered by its holy blessing even though it was making her skin blister. “It’s time you abandoned your master.”
My chest tightened at her request, and I could only scoff. “To what end? To serve you instead?”
Those hard eyes of hers bore into me, but they weren’t as frightening as her blood-red lips. “No, I won’t require your servitude, but you’ll have my protection if you so wish.” She pressed the dagger into my hand where it turned back into that damned golden coin. “Or next time, steel your wavering heart.”
Find Arizona Tape’s books at www.arizonatape.com.
Part 7
by Allison Carr Waechter
My heart wavered for so long it grew wings. My future had only ever been servitude. Sacrelash leaned against her desk, her magnetic gaze dark. “Did Eclara teach you what magic is?”
The only things the cloister taught me were that free will was an illusion and that my birth had been an abomination for which I must atone. And then I came here and learned more than I imagined possible. For years, I’d absorbed what Sacrelash taught the mages at the keep—that above all, magic was will made manifest. That choice was sacred.
“Choice,” I breathed.
“And do you know what a witchbreaker is?” Sacrelash pushed off the desk, the intensity in her eyes growing. I shook my head, though my heart knew the answer. “A witch whose will has been bound—twisted to another’s aims.”
The lies the cloister told crumbled. I was a witch.
Sacrelash glanced down at the coin, her fingers brushing mine. “Hatred for what you are is a burden.” The coin melted, twisting into a thin cord that wound tight around my wrist with familiar pain. “Use your will to break it and find freedom, or let hatred wring you dry.”
She made it sound simple. As though all I had to do was want this. The wings in my heart beat faster. I wedged my index finger under the golden bond. Had I ever wanted anything more?
I yanked hard, my deepest desires taking flight. The chain dissolved, fading into shimmering air. My breath came in fevered gasps, hot tears falling on my cheeks.
Sacrelash’s eyes blazed with adoration. “Speak your choice aloud, Leyria.”
Her words had barely left her lips before I closed the distance between us, pulling her hips to mine as our mouths met. “Freedom,” I murmured into her mouth. “And this.”
Her fingers gripped my hair as she deepened the kiss. Nothing between us would be peaceful—every moment would be a blissful battle of wills. I was finally free.
“A good choice,” she murmured. “A very good choice, indeed.”
Find Allison Carr Waechter’s books at www.allisoncarrwaechter.com.