E’s Reviews > The Rifter Book Three: His Sacred Bones > Status Update

Mortar, halls, walls, streets, tall stone buildings, and cramped alleys flashed through his mind. He rose over them, rushing past snow-covered miles of farmland and sprawling forest. He plunged south, through wild, lush woods and cascades of rain. At last he found Ravishan, sleeping in the shelter of a crumbling Payshmura shrine.

The name evoked a solitary green refuge. It conjured the image of a calm moment in a deep forest, when the sun filtered through leaves and cast warm emerald shadows. The sweet perfume of bramble flowers mixed with the salty scent of his own sweat. He thought of Ravishan's lips on his skin and suddenly realized he was drifting into a dream.

"Are we going to be safe here?" Ravishan whispered. "I'm tired of hiding."
"I know." John kissed Ravishan's clean dark hair.
Comfortable warmth radiated from the pipes running overhead. John held Ravishan close and felt the tension drain from his body. Ravishan's breath slowed to a deep, relaxed rhythm.

The sense of it washed through him, overflowing any awareness of his own injured flesh. Below the snow lay a black and cinnamon mulch of fallen leaves, river grasses, and reeds. A rich swathe of carbon and nitrogen seeped from the decay. Lace-like threads of fungi spread through the ground, linking the deep roots of distant pines and wrapping like cocoons around the tiny gold grains of dormant seeds.