The servants always said that the old man doted on me. Without a mother in the picture, I was irrevocably Yeshin’s, and they said he guarded me with the same ferocity he murdered his enemies with. He didn’t like the nursemaids leaving me alone in my crib—I was a bad sleeper, and he insisted they carry me in a sling at all times. If they let me cry too long, or didn’t change my nappies fast enough, he would descend on them with such viciousness that they were usually gone by the next day. And if I woke up in the middle of the night, he would tear down from his quarters to snatch me from my wet-nurse’s arms and sing me back to sleep himself.
Tall tales, people say. This could not be the same Warlord Yeshin of the War of the Wolves, the same man who once drove his horse into an unguarded Ikessar hamlet, fifty men behind him, and cleared the way to the village square with his spear. By the time he was done, his horse was red from the neck down. But I could believe it. I could remember his smooth voice, the way his chest rumbled as he pulled my blankets up to my chin and sang me to sleep. On summer nights, he would use a paper fan to chase the warm breeze away, and fan it long enough that his arm must’ve stung from the effort.
Even before I learned of his dealings with Yuebek, a part of me always knew that the truth could be as complex as a shaft of light through a cut gem. Turn it, view it from another angle, and it shifts. Sometimes it is telling, a burst of clarity on a dark streak, brightness to chase away shadows. Sometimes it is blinding.
Coming in 2019
About The Author
K.S. Villoso was born in a dank hospital on an afternoon in Albay, Philippines, and things have generally been okay since then. After spending most of her childhood in a slum area in Taguig (where she dodged death-defying traffic, ate questionable food, and fell into open-pit sewers more often than one ought to), she and her family immigrated to Vancouver, Canada, where they spent the better part of two decades trying to chase the North American Dream. She is now living amidst the forest and mountains with her family, children, and dogs in Anmore, BC.
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Other Books By K.S. Villoso
The Agartes Epilogues
"The true story, as always, is in the details."
A hero's daughter-turned seamstress, and the two brothers who finds their fate woven with hers, are caught in a war involving a necromantic beast.
Blackwood Marauders
After failing the military entrance exam, an upstanding young man finds himself responsible for a group of vicious, bloodthirsty mercenaries and a hot-headed noblewoman with a twisted plot at her heels.
Birthplace
Pablo Santos—reckless, irresponsible, social misfit—doesn't want to join his dad in Canada. He wants to stay in Manila with his best friend, Rachel Ann. In a fit of rage, he decides to get even by breaking into the old man's email account. A simple security question stumps him: “Where was father born?” The fact that he doesn’t know anything about his father’s past pushes Pablo to take a journey across the sprawling Philippine countryside. He is accompanied by the spoiled, spirited Rachel Ann, who had just dumped her latest boyfriend and can't seem to get over it like usual. Rachel Ann’s father suspects them of eloping and they find themselves hiding out in a farming village to escape the heat. Here, their vacation takes a turn for the worse when they meet a sullen boy Rachel Ann falls head over heels for, an old man with a taste for raw flesh, and a beautiful girl who seduces Pablo, drops half her body, and tries to eat him. Suddenly, Pablo's quest becomes more than he bargained for as he is led to some unsettling discoveries about his family, his father, and most importantly, himself.
The Ikessar Falcon Page 58