No Waking Dream (Len's Song, 2022 edition, Snippet 5)

A story fragment from the Dustsong Cycle

(Read Len’s Song, 2022 edition, Snippet 4.)

Only then did Len’s mind heed the woman standing just behind the lifeless barbarian, or the enormous knife of flame and light she held extended in front of her. Never had Len imagined such a person, with red-tinted locks framing angular features. Her skin was the hue of pine, more akin to the other men than to Len. But he fancied that if people were wrought from trees, this woman must be fashioned from a willow, like the ones Ghrem said grew in the bottomlands.

This willowy woman glided over Young Beard’s body; the flames rising from the corpse gave off no smoke and, most curious, seemed not to affect her or to catch the grass alight. She glared down her nose at Len and otherwise exuded an air of irritation at odds with the song-like cadence of her voice. “Get you up,” she demanded.