Beneath Ceaseless Skies #71 Read online

  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.

  Knowing that my guests and servants wouldn’t understand, I tell them the laughter is my own. More and more often, this is not entirely untrue—because if Valien has reason for joy, then so do I.

  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

  “Fly High,” by Tina Marie Lane

  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

  Copyright © 2011 Firkin Press

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