Return to Wickmasa: Goddess's Honor

By Joyce Reynolds-Ward

A heavy-hearted Katerin returns to Wickmasa after Rekaré’s costly capture of the Leadership of Medvara which resulted in the deaths of her beloved Metkyi and her hidden father Alame. Not only must she console her new sister-in-law but the woman who has been her hidden father’s beloved for so many years. Can Katerin help heal their sorrow as well as her own, and restore Metkyi’s heartstone that broke upon his death?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Joyce Reynolds-Ward
• Release date: Feb 13, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386709985

Joyce Reynolds-Ward

Joyce Reynolds-Ward splits her time between Portland and Enterprise, Oregon. A former special education teacher, Joyce also enjoys horses, skiing, and other outdoor activities. She's had short stories and essays published in First Contact Café, Tales from an Alien Campfire, River, How Beer Saved the World 1 and 2, Fantasy Scroll Magazine, and Trust and Treachery. Her novels Netwalk: Expanded Edition, Netwalker Uprising, Life in the Shadows: Diana and Will, Netwalk’s Children, and Alien Savvy as well as other works are available through Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Google Play, and other sources. Alien Savvy is also available in audiobook through Audible, Amazon, and iTunes. Follow Joyce's adventures through her blog, Peak Amygdala, at www.joycereynoldsward.com, or through her LiveJournal at joycemocha. Joyce’s Amazon Central page is located at http://www.amazon.com/Joyce-Reynolds-Ward/e/B00HIP821Y.

Book preview

RETURN TO WICKMASA

BY

JOYCE REYNOLDS-WARD

A GODDESS’S HONOR SHORT STORY

This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to real people is purely coincidental.

Return to Wickmasa  © 2018 by Joyce Reynolds-Ward.

All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Distribution is handled by the author, and all requests for redistribution should be directed to the author.

RETURN TO WICKMASA

This was not the return to Wickmasa that Katerin had envisioned.

Of course, neither she nor Metkyi had considered what would happen should they succeed in their desperate quest to help Rekaré depose the tyrant Zauril as Leader of Medvara. Even after they discovered Katerin’s pregnancy, neither had dared to speak of what would happen after they got Rekaré to Medvara and done…whatever it would take to help Rekaré succeed. If they achieved their goal of toppling Zauril and replacing him with Rekaré, which in a few of those dark days did not seem possible.

But when Katerin had allowed herself to imagine the return, it didn’t look like today. She had visualized her and Metkyi returning on a cold but sunny day. Snow crunched under her daranval Mira’s hooves and everything was dazzling bright and white, in contrast to the rain and gray-green gloom of Medvara. They would ride in the middle of Orelyets’ trade caravan, laded with goods from a successful Midwinter Fair at Chellni. Her newly-discovered father, Alame, would have ridden ahead looking for his beloved Siljaren, who had remained behind in Wickmasa as healer in place of Katerin. The Gods would be quiet for once, content to leave their dedicated ones alone for a season.

The reality was nothing like that. The small troop that included Katerin rode the wide trail winding down the canyon wall to the village, huddled in their heavy winter parkas. Icy snow pellets pounded the riders, snowing so hard that she couldn’t make out anything more than two horse lengths ahead. She kept a snug contact on her reins to help support her new daranval, who was still sufficiently green-broke to worry about maintaining her balance on the ice-crusted snow with a rider. It was only due to Orelyets’s knowledge of the trail that kept Katerin confident that they were indeed not that far from Wickmasa.

And she had lost so much in the span of a month. No Metkyi. No Mira. No Alame. All three dead, sacrificed to Rekaré’s successful ascension to the Leadership of Medvara. Instead of Mira, Katerin rode Rainin, a young, barely-trained bay daranval mare, in the