Mud

  No matter how many mornings I dredge myself out of bed and open my computer, there are certain people without whom not a single word would matter.

  First and always, many thanks to Christopher. Thank you for believing in my writing from the very beginning, even sometimes when I did not. And for giving me the space, time, confidence, and sometimes the finances to make this book the best it could be. Most of all, thanks for being so totally cool about it that time I set the alarm for 5 a.m., crawled over you, and started typing away a good two hours before you had any interest in waking up, for five years straight, even when we were in a teeny studio apartment and there was no escaping my noise.

  And, of course, to my parents. Thank you for filling my brain with everything from ballet to piano to softball, and for making imagination mandatory. To Mom for the summer short story contests. To Dad for reading to us every night. To you both for accepting “making stuff up” as a legitimate career choice.

  To Rebecca and Sam, who always make me feel like a rock star, even if it’s just because I was born first. Reba, for the Black Fridays and the early morning ’80s rock jams in the car, and always being available as a sounding board for literally anything. And Spiderbutt, for the Bob Evans breakfasts and the movies no one else appreciated but us, and a life full of Potato-Head face moments.

  Also, to those who have lent time and thought to help me improve my writing. To The Writers Center, an absolutely invaluable resource. To my D.C. writing group—Adam, Gary, Jennifer, Michael—for all the monthly meetings, shared laughs and support over drinks, and thoughtful critique. And to the beta readers who so kindly showed interest in my work before there was any reason to and gave me such wonderful feedback.

  Many thanks also to Heather, Tina, and the whole City Owl team, who have given me an amazing opportunity. Your expertise, guidance, and passion have made Mud a better book, and me a better, savvier author. You have made this journey to publishing my first novel less daunting and way more fun.

  And, to the person who started all this and does not even know it, a certain former editor at Grand Rapids Magazine who took me in as an intern, even though I was clearly clueless, and drew out something in me I did not know was there: that I could write, and that I loved it. It opened an entire career path for me, and gave me a coveted creative outlet I could not navigate this world without.

  Thank you for reading! Find book two, TIDES, in the Chronicles of the Third Realm War coming in 2016.

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  Take a look at a sneak peek of the next book in the Chronicles of the Third Realm War

  TIDES

  By: E. J. Wenstrom

  Coming Soon from City Owl Press

  Haven.

  Sanctuary. Safety. Refuge.

  As a village, it’s not living up to its name at all. Things have been tense—at least, ever since I arrived here, they have.

  But then, bringing me back is what started this whole mess. That’s what shattered the barrier between the realms and released the rebel First Creatures determined to take down the Gods.

  And the Gods are furious about it.

  The rebels have tried this twice before—the Realm Wars. Last time they almost succeeded. Now they’ve had ages trapped in the Underworld to let their rage simmer. They haven’t broken free yet, but it’s only a matter of time. I would know. It’s where I’ve wasted away for the last thousand years.

  The Third War isn’t a surprise, exactly. It was foretold. The people of Haven have been preparing to fight on behalf of their Gods for generations. But not even the greatest prophets have been able to divine how it turns out. And no one expected it so soon.

  So there’s reason enough for Haven’s people to be tense. I sure have been.

  If anyone had bothered to ask me, I could have told them this would happen. I would have told them to leave me in the Underworld and let me rot. I sent myself there for a reason. And it worked. I was at peace, or close enough to it. At least Kythiel couldn’t reach me there.

  But ever since I came here—no, was dragged here by that golem—my life has been a barrage of sensory overload. As if my body is catching up on the hundreds of years that have passed since I was last alive, all at once.

  My body aches with exhaustion. It wrapped back around me when I re-entered this realm with a vengeance, as if to pin me down and hold me here, a garment too tight and stiff.

  Then there’s the irritating buzz of people constantly hovering around me, sun up to sun down, insisting I rest, and eat, and rest more and eat more, to nourish away the depletion of my body.

  They’re angry. Some of them still don’t trust us, Adem and me, no matter how Jordan assures them. It’s okay, I get it. As far as they know, when we arrived is when everything started to go wrong. It’s the rumors of upheaval and coups that make me uncomfortable.

  Despite it all, Jordan comes to my hut every day with the golem—Adem, they call him. They hover and pace away hours around my bed, and we try to force together the clues we have to stop another Realm War.

  It’s been weeks of this. We still have nothing. Just a description of a necklace, a name, and some rumors from the beginning of the rift between the Gods and their First Creatures. But we keep at it anyway, driven by our collective sense of guilt.

  Then the sun goes down, everyone files out of my hut, and finally I can breathe. But sleep? That’s a completely different story. My sleep has been agitated and broken ever since I came back to this realm. Restless dreams of hostile darkness wake me abruptly over and over in a cold sweat.

  Which is why I’m up now. Once I shake my mind free of the haunting dreams, I don’t mind too much. Now, before the sun is up, it’s quiet. No one else is awake yet to tell me what to do, or remind me how fragile I am. I can stretch my legs and take in some fresh air.

  My bare feet squish through the mud. It’s cool and soothing, like the sweet morning breeze that rustles through my hair. It’s dark still, the only hint of morning a tinge of pink on the horizon behind the village huts.

  I didn’t exactly rest in the Underworld, either. Which means it’s been hundreds of years since I’ve had a good sleep. My body feels it, too, achey and wobbly and strung out. But anything is better than the terrors that rush into my mind when I close my eyes. The whoosh of demon shadows, whispers of age-old visions from the Gods, Kythiel’s crazed eyes. It’s all trapped inside me, just waiting to pounce at me should my mind begin to quiet.

  As I reach the shore, sand sticks between my toes with the mud. I pull off my dress and toss it onto the sand without stopping. The body I expose is one I hardly recognize as my own, weak and still too skinny despite all the eating they force on me. I’m stronger every day, though. Just a couple weeks ago I couldn’t have made the walk all the way down to the sea on my own.

  I keep walking right into the ocean and let the pull of the waves lead me in. Its chill reminds me what it was to be alive—really alive, not this sheltered half-life they’d boxed me into since I came back. When I’m deep enough, I drop to my knees and let the water rush over my head.

  And as the chill seeps deeper and turns my fingers and toes numb, it reminds me of what it was to be dead. Death, that safe, easy numbness. I sunk into it so easily. The Underworld was grim, but its emptiness was a relief after what I’d been through with Kythiel. Part of me aches to go back—to shed this miserable starved body and let the num
bness take over again. I could do it. It wouldn’t be hard. Just like before, a quick slash across my middle, and it would all drain away in minutes.

  I lay back and close my eyes, let the water’s current toss me.

  Maybe I should stick around for a while, though. After all, Kythiel’s gone, too far destroyed to reach me on Terath now. In a way it’s my fault he was left out there to prey on Adem in the first place. Instead of finishing him, I just fled to where he could not reach me.

  No, I won’t flee this time. I’ll do all I can to set right what I helped break. Adem and Jordan are not going to be able to right this on their own, and they shouldn’t have to.

  When I open my eyes, there is a lean, tall figure standing over me. Loose curls of red hair blow around his head and catch in the sun rising just behind him. His face is hidden in shadow, but I can tell he his smiling by the pull of his cheeks.

  That godsdamn smile. He’s always smiling.

  “Jordan.” It comes out with a heavy sigh. I bring myself to my feet, my dripping hair clinging to my bare shoulders and chest.

  “Um,” Jordan pulls his eyes away, his face flushing red as his hair. “You weren’t in your hut.”

  His bashful reaction to my body boils under my skin. I stand still and tall, rejecting the impulse to cover myself.

  “No, I’m not.” I’m not going to give explanations for myself—they can all insist that I rest all they want, but if I want to be out, I’ll go out.

  “Well … I just wanted to let you know,” he forces his gaze up again and makes eye contact. “Adem and I are leaving in a little bit to visit another village.”

  What? Both of them? I can feel the frown creases forming across my forehead. “What for?”

  He pauses. “Why don’t you come back up to the shore? We’ll all talk about this together.”

  I glance back toward the village and see Adem lurking on the sand. Resentment twists through me. “Fine.”

  Jordan turns and wades his way back, his pant legs dripping. I look out to the endless waves, take in one last moment of the sea’s tranquility, and then follow him.

  Adem gives me a furtive glance as we approach, then stares back down to the sand. His shoulders are hunched in tight, as if to shut us out. The guilt has surrounded him like a storm cloud ever since the fight with Kythiel. It makes me want to shake him with all my strength until it disperses.

  Jordan hands me my dress. I pull it on, sand dusting over my head and sticking to my shoulders as the cool fabric falls around me. Both of the men relax and turn their eyes back my way once my skin is covered.

  “So what is all this?” I prompt.

  There’s a beat as they make eye contact, and then Jordan clears his throat. “Adem and I are going to another village not far from here. We’ll only be gone a few days. We just thought you’d want to know.”

  His tone is forcefully casual. I narrow my eyes, studying his face. His lips are pursed together tight, his mouth a thin line. He meets my gaze and holds it, waiting for me to respond.

  “What for?” I ask.

  It must be awfully important, whatever it is, for Jordan to be willing to leave his village while it’s so unstable. Or doesn’t he know how his people are splitting apart? It didn’t occur to me before, but he’s so optimistic, he might not be able to see the anger bubbling among them.

  Jordan fidgets his hands. He wants to lie, I can see it. But if there’s one thing about Jordan, it’s that he has this thing about integrity. He can’t help himself.

  “It’s nothing, we’re just talking to someone.”

  I huff out the air from my lungs in frustration and turn to Adem, my hands crossed over my chest.

  “Adem?”

  Adem isn’t like Jordan. But he means well. And his guilt for bringing me back and all that followed weight on him. He will always give me what I want.

  He stares blankly at me a moment. It’s so strange, he looks so human. But always that blank stare gives him away as a lesser creature. But for what is essentially just a pile of mud, I guess he does alright. I wonder if he’s thinking, weighing out what he owes Jordan versus what he owes me. But I’ll always win in that measure. He brought me back unwillingly from the dead, damnit, and I’ve been in unrest ever since.

  He shoots Jordan an apologetic glance before he speaks. “It’s a prophet.”

  I knew it had to do with the Wars. I whip back to Jordan. “I can’t believe it. We agreed.”

  All this time plotting together, puzzling, trying to figure it all out. Together, we all agreed we were in this together. And they were just going to leave me behind.

  It’s not just about feeling included. They’re going to need me. I was there when it all happened. I saw everything fall apart the first time. Besides, they’re the ones who dragged me into this Gods-forsaken mess.

  And just look at these two. Leave the fate of the realms to these two fools? Not a chance.

  “No!” Jordan is so insistent his voice is a high-pitched squeal. “You’re still healing. If we’re going to do this together, we need you strong. This is just a conversation with someone. We don’t even know if he can help yet. And it’s a full day’s walk each way. You’re not strong enough.”

  “I’m plenty strong,” I snap. These two are so determined for me to be fragile. “And I won’t get any better wilting away in that hut. I need to do something. I’m coming.”

  “No,” Jordan says again. “Besides, there’s no time. We’re leaving as soon as the sun comes up. I just have to leave some parting instructions with Lena first.”

  Already the village is stirring, the morning cooks preparing everyone’s breakfast around the fire.

  “I’ll be ready.”

  Jordan frowns, but neither of them argues. I’m in. I bite the corner of my lip to hold back my excitement and turn away to walk quickly back to my hut and pack my sack.

  If I’m honest, I still feel fragile, just like Jordan said. Brittle, like I could snap right in two. But my soul craves to be out, to do something. Can I really walk a full day in the sun? My body cringes at the thought.

  But I’m losing my mind stagnating away here. I have spent enough time cooped up and doing what others tell me to. For better or worse I’m alive again, and this time I’m setting my own terms.

  I hope I’ve got it in me. Guess we’re about to find out.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  No matter how many mornings I dredge myself out of bed and open my computer, there are certain people without whom not a single word would matter.

  First and always, many thanks to Christopher. Thank you for believing in my writing from the very beginning, even sometimes when I did not. And for giving me the space, time, confidence, and sometimes the finances to make this book the best it could be. Most of all, thanks for being so totally cool about it that time I set the alarm for 5 a.m., crawled over you, and started typing away a good two hours before you had any interest in waking up, for five years straight, even when we were in a teeny studio apartment and there was no escaping my noise.

  And, of course, to my parents. Thank you for filling my brain with everything from ballet to piano to softball, and for making imagination mandatory. To Mom for the summer short story contests. To Dad for reading to us every night. To you both for accepting “making stuff up” as a legitimate career choice.

  To Rebecca and Sam, who always make me feel like a rock star, even if it’s just because I was born first. Reba, for the Black Fridays and the early morning ’80s rock jams in the car, and always being available as a sounding board for literally anything. And Spiderbutt, for the Bob Evans breakfasts and the movies no one else appreciated but us, and a life full of Potato-Head face moments.

  Also, to those who have lent time and thought to help me improve my writing. To The Writers Center, an absolutely invaluable resource. To my D.C. writing group—Adam, Gary, Jennifer, Michael—for all the monthly meetings, shared laughs and support over drinks, and thoughtful critique. And to the beta rea
ders who so kindly showed interest in my work before there was any reason to and gave me such wonderful feedback.

  Many thanks also to Heather, Tina, and the whole City Owl team, who have given me an amazing opportunity. Your expertise, guidance, and passion have made Mud a better book, and me a better, savvier author. You have made this journey to publishing my first novel less daunting and way more fun.

  And, to the person who started all this and does not even know it, a certain former editor at Grand Rapids Magazine who took me in as an intern, even though I was clearly clueless, and drew out something in me I did not know was there: that I could write, and that I loved it. It opened an entire career path for me, and gave me a coveted creative outlet I could not navigate this world without.

  About the Author

  E. J. Wenstrom is a fantasy and science fiction author. A D.C. girl at heart, she currently lives in Florida with her husband and their miniature pinscher. Her first novel, MUD, is being published by City Owl Press. When she’s not writing fiction, E. J. drinks coffee, goes running, and has long conversations with her dog. Ray Bradbury is her hero. Keep tabs on E.J.s writing and other antics at

  www. ejwenstrom.com

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