Soulstice Briar Novels & Stories

I release the death grip with an effort, flexing my fingers as if to prove I am flesh and not another ghost in this place. "Tell me what you need," I say. Her lips work silently for a moment before any sound emerges. "Nothing. It is done. We bless the dead, we wait for the bones to finish burning. The rest is gone." She reaches into her apron and produces a sprig of something green. Not a flower—nothing blooms here—but a weed, tough and grayish. She hands it to me, and I take it because to refuse would be to break her entirely. "For luck," she says. "Or memory."

"Can I return it? No receipt, but maybe store credit?" He actually snorted. A real sound. From Rivener. She stared at him. "Did... did you just laugh?" "No." "You totally did! That was absolutely a laugh!" "It was an exhale." "With tone." Rivener leaned closer, fingertips brushing hers as he tapped the map. The contact was soft. Unintentional. Maybe. It still sent a warm spark up her arm. "We'll go here at sunset," he said, pointing to a forest clearing marked with a crescent. "It's where the barrier between the physical and the spectral thins. The Sentinel may appear again."

But when I waved at them once my older brother, Felix, started the car and pulled out of the driveway, they both waved at me with huge smiles on their faces,smiles that matched my own. ~~~ It was a four hour drive from my town to Seattle,so I settled down with a novel that the librarian gifted me. I didn't have much friends back at home, and seeing I was so in love with books, I spent a lot of time at the local library, helping out when I could and whiling away time by reading, in all that time I became friends with the librarian, Lizzy. Even though she was well into her fifties, she still wanted to be called Lizzy because she said it made her feel young, I didn't argue with her on it.

Firing towards me. I shriek as the shift takes over. My legs fuse together, my talons erupt and webbing forms. My gills split across my neck. I dive further down. “I, queen Asteria, the first siren, call my power to me. I invoke my power, the power of the sea and storms.” I throw my arms out at my sides as lightning pierces the water and hits me. I throw my head back and scream. I open my eyes and smirk darkly. The power rolls through me. I am grabbed from behind. I lift my tail and hit the diver. I turn and shriek as I grab him and bite into his neck, ripping his throat out. My talons ripping him to shreds. Blood fills the water as I swim fast and attack the other divers, leaving nothing bu

“That’s a lie and you know it.” Calista’s brow arched faintly. “You once described battlefield stew as transcendent,” she replied dryly. “Forgive me if I adjust my expectations.” Selene Vale stood opposite them, unmistakable even without armor, flame held in disciplined control. Her gaze flicked from the three of them emerging together to Briar already seated, already eating, and her expression shifted — not disapproval, but surprise. “I slept like a stone,” Briar announced cheerfully, reaching for fruit with the casual confidence of someone who had forgotten what ceremony felt like. “A very tired stone that has learned to appreciate not being rained on.”

There wasn’t a soul left alive on that cursed mountain when that sun traveled across the sky that next morning. I traveled from town to town and village to village in those following days, and I watched as soulmates turned into enemies from their bigotry and their hatred. The betrayal of one bond had single-handedly destroyed the bonds for countless other people. The world was torn apart by fighting in and among all clans. I, Mae Shamrock, last of The Sisters of the Path Coven, bore witness to the destruction of the soulmate bond as the Soulmate Covenant was broken in 1850. I knew without a doubt that it would not be returning… UNTIL the world changed its ways…

Caleb growled, his hand hovering over her face but unable to touch the spiritual fire she was igniting. "If we don't get that fragment, I won't survive the night anyway." Scarlett looked him directly in the eye, her spirit already beginning to drift. "Caleb, this is our only winning move." With the doctor’s assistance, Scarlett lit a stick of Soul-Settling Incense. As the aromatic smoke curled around her, she felt a violent tearing sensation. Her body slumped back onto the pillows, pale and barely breathing, while her spirit rose—a translucent, shimmering form glowing with a faint golden hue.

Zoey “What’s this about?” Bri asked, sitting back in her chair. She wore Wyatt’s shirt open with only a thin low-cut bralette beneath. The new tattoo she’d had Issac drill into her skin was simple and elegant as it rested on her sternum just below her breasts. Up the center of her chest, the water lily bloom birthed a crescent moon, a series of lines and dots indicating its glow in a circle around it, and above that a dainty fleur de lis. It paired with the twin Hyacinth Bean vines that now wrapped around her biceps and snaked down her arms and around each ring finger all in elegant black and grey. She and Issac had this thing about being in each other's company in companionable silence. The

I burst out laughing, and he kisses me, sealing our fate again and again. We spend most of the early afternoon in bed, locked together, my hands memorizing every inch of his body while he maps mine with his tongue. In the late afternoon, he finally rolls out of bed with a burst of energy that results in a massive evergreen tree being propped up in the foyer with the help of the male spirit, Levi, while Isolde raids every closet and storage room for Solstice decorations. I sit in the center of the foyer with a few of my alchemy tools, crafting orbs of translucent crystal out of iron that Isolde strings like beads along a length of twine, and by the time the stars are out and gleaming in the h

It gleams midair, and I immediately know he’s going to decapitate Jossie. I don’t know how, but I rise to my feet. No pain, no struggle. It’s almost as though I didn’t get my bone smashed by a metal pole. Everything goes silent. Time seems to slow down. The last thing I register is Briar bounding towards me and me wrapping my hands around his neck. Then, sharp white light begins to dance in my fingertips, sucking the air out of the room and making his skin sizzle and burn. ⇼ A L I S T A I R ⇼