Valiance: A Collection of Short Stories of Courageous Women

By Melion Traverse

A Cord Silver and Invisible
A brave young woman and her griffin test the bounds and meaning of friendship, freedom, and loyalty, but will they be able to keep all three?

A Sacrifice of Blood and Future
The timid son of a renowned female warrior faces an unimaginable foe, but to save the day could cost everything.

The Sword's Squire
Led by a possessed ancient family sword, a hopeful squire must prove her mettle to join a holy order of knights. Many vie for such an honor, but few are worthy.

Lives Beyond the Portal
When her life is at its bleakest, a girl discovers a magical portal in her basement. How many lives can one person have?

A Particularly Powerful Lunar Event, a Completely True Story
While walking her dog, a werewolf hits it off with a handsome man. Unfortunately, his secrets may be even darker than hers.

The Mad Scientist's Daughter
High school's hard enough without the stigma of having a mad scientist father. And being pressured by your mother to date a zombie probably won't help…
 

Authors 4 Authors Content Rating

This title has been rated 17+, appropriate for older teens and adults, and contains:

• strong language
• intense violence
• brief implied sex

For more information on our rating system, please, visit our the Authors 4 Authors Publishing website.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Authors 4 Authors Publishing Cooperative
• Release date: Oct 13, 2020
• ISBN: 9781644770924

Book preview

Valiance:

A Collection of Short Stories of Courageous Women

Melion Traverse

Authors 4 Authors Publishing

Marysville, WA, USA

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, incidents, and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

©2020 Melion Traverse

A Particularly Powerful Lunar Event ©2018 Melion Traverse

First published in Secrets in Our Cities: A Paranormal Urban Fantasy Anthology

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without prior written permission from the publisher, except for use in brief quotations as permitted by United States copyright law.

Published by Authors 4 Authors Publishing

1214 6th St

Marysville, WA 98270

www.authors4authorspublishing.com

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020947826

E-book ISBN: 978-1-64477-092-4

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-64477-093-1

Edited by Rebecca Mikkelson

Cover and interior design by Brandi Spencer

Authors 4 Authors Content Rating

This title has been rated 17+, appropriate for older teens and adults, and contains:

strong language

intense violence

brief implied sex

For more information on our rating system, please, visit our Content Guide.

Dedication

To my husband

Table of Contents

Valiance: A Collection of Short Stories of Courageous Women

Copyright

Authors 4 Authors Content Rating

Dedication

A Cord Silver and Invisible

A Sacrifice of Blood and Future

The Sword’s Squire

Lives Beyond the Portal

A Particularly Powerful Lunar Event, a Completely True Story

The Mad Scientist’s Daughter

Also by Melion Traverse

About the Author

About the Publisher

A Cord Silver and Invisible

The first thing I should explain about Grandma is she was a sorceress. The second thing I should explain is she was eccentric.

After I was born—one week to the day, precisely—Grandma insisted my parents bring me to her up in the high tower. She claimed she had a rare gift, something she dare not bring downstairs. Father grumbled at the idea, but he knew well that his mother-in-law was going to get her way. So, up they carried me. Up the winding stairs with a late autumn draft spitting rain through cracked windows. Father mumbled on about illness. Mother assured him she knew how to bundle an infant against the cold. After all, I was their fifth child.

At the final twist, the stairs opened into a snug room that soothed the senses with aromas of fragrant teas and musty parchment, and the sight of gossamer curtains softening the light.

Normally. But not on that day.

By the gods! Father exclaimed, throwing himself between Mother and the thing that waited in the room.

Curled in the center of the room, its tawny bulk cramped within the small space, a gryphon turned its face toward my parents. As a rule, gryphons have but one expression: fierce. And this one blazed fierceness from its eyes to its curved beak down to the sharp points of its flexing talons.

Esrella! What in the hell is this! Father demanded, grabbing from habit for a sword that he wasn’t wearing—probably because he hadn’t expect his mother-in-law to be summoning gryphons right overhead inside his own castle.

It’s a gryphon, of course, Grandma answered, turning an arched-brow expression to Mother. It was the sort of expression which said exactly what type of idiot Grandma thought Mother had been reduced to marrying.

The gryphon rose to its feet and gave itself a shake, sending a few loose feathers drifting across the room. Once it stood, a shimmery cord became visible. Looped around the beast’s neck, the cord stretched to Grandma, who held the other end lightly in her gnarled fingers.

Mother, my mother began to Grandma, a heavy dose of exasperation infused into one word, you need to get that thing out of here. What were you thinking?

Grandma snorted. Thinking? I was thinking about the future of Thora, about her safety. She gestured to me, the cocooned bundle in Mother’s arms, with an absent wave as she flipped through one of the many tomes stacked about the room.

I think Thora will be much safer without gryphons in this castle, Father said, still holding his position between Mother and the sharp-beaked creature. "In fact, I think we’ll all be safer, which isn’t something I ever thought I’d have to explain."

Heh, Grandma scoffed. If I had a minute in my life for everything I never thought I’d have to explain to you, I would live forever.

Balancing a hefty tome in one hand and gripping the shimmering cord in the other, Grandma hobbled on gouty feet toward Mother. Father gritted his teeth and tensed, but Grandma trundled past him as though he were no more interesting than a shadow.

Honestly, Einar, she said, if the gryphon wanted to eat you, he’d have done so already. That seemed to tickle her, and she snickered, which didn’t amuse Father. But he had learned that even a jarl cannot control a sorceress—especially not when one is his mother-in-law.

This gryphon is the gift I was talking about, Grandma explained. Didn’t I give all the other children presents at their birth?

More manageable presents, Mother pointed out. Even the talking sword you gave Finn is less, well…

…insane than this, Father finished for her. He turned to Mother. Take Thora downstairs. I’ll manage this disaster. Yet again.

Mother hesitated. In the power struggle between sorceress and jarl, she oftentimes found herself swept aside. Not even a pawn, but a piece forgotten beside the board. Perhaps had I not chosen that moment to fuss and struggle against my swathing of blankets, Mother would have walked away and life would have been different for us all. But she shifted me in her arms to murmur reassurances.

That was when I saw the silver cord sparkling in Grandma’s hand. One arm loose from among the blankets—I was always good for squirming out of any confines, even as a baby—I grasped the air with tiny fingers. That was it. That was all it took to change my future.

"Bestia infanti adligando est, Grandma whispered. Ego chordam eas ligare jubeo."

The cord shot from her hand with its own power, streaking like a comet’s tail. With a noise like the whisper of a breeze, the cord wrapped itself around my plump wrist. One flash of silver light, and the cord vanished.

Gods! What the hell have you done, woman! Father raged, gesturing from Grandma to me. Undo whatever you just did.

Grandma shrugged as though explaining a spilled teacup. Nothing more I can do, she said. The chain that binds child to guardian cannot be broken by my hands. No, not by any hands. Until the end of her days, Thora has a protector who can never be separated from her. He will look after her long past our deaths.

Father snarled something lost in the grinding of his teeth and strode from the room.

The gryphon moved toward me, head bobbing side to side as he studied the arm jutting from the bundle of blankets. Mother clung to me, pressing me tight to her thick, furred robes, but I kept reaching tiny fingers toward the gryphon. He lowered his head and stretched toward me, nudging my hand with his beak. Mother sucked a deep breath but didn’t move. Grandma laughed.

I had my guardian.

How in the world can you remember that? asked the hermit, who sat swathed in a bundle of rags and deerskins against the winter cold. He lifted his eyebrows and paused with a cup of myrtlebrush tea halfway to his lips. You were but an infant.

It was eighteen years ago, but I remember it because Andor remembers it, I said and settled back against the warm bulk of the gryphon.

Andor. The gryphon turned his head and nudged me with his beak, his eyes set upon the plate of crackers before me.

I selected a cracker and placed it in Andor’s waiting beak. He gulped it down and shoved at me for another.

The hermit stared at Andor as he’d been doing since he’d invited us to wedge ourselves into his little hut. Built of timbers packed with thick moss to keep out the drafts, the hut seemed larger inside than out. Well, I had a sorceress for a grandmother, so I knew magic when I saw it. Simple magic, really, but magic nonetheless, and far beyond my fumbling abilities. The fire crackling in the hearth flared with a slightly blue tinge—the mark of magic fire, if I’d ever seen it. Grandma kept her room high in the tower lit with a similar roaring fire when the bitter winds snapped down from the mountains. It gave off a marvelous warmth, but in these later years, even the magic fire couldn’t chase the chill from Grandma’s bones.

I noted the layers of blankets and