Author Archives: Chayli

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I call him Bud. He calls me Chayda. We get along for the most part, and it’s a good thing we do because we spend a lot of time together. We’re friends, but we’re not alike. He’s a boy; I’m a girl. He’s short; I’m tall. He’s blond; I’m brunette. His eyes are blue; mine are green. He’s a baby; I’m supposed to be grown up.

He’s lived twenty three months. I’ve lived twenty three years. There is so much I could teach him, so many things he needs to learn. But while I am showing him new things and unveiling the world to him, he is simply reminding me of things I knew once but have forgotten.

“Hold hands,” he says, and puts his chubby fist in mine. And suddenly instead of me simply following him around the yard, we are walking together, and sometimes I am leading him, but usually he is leading me.

I come to his house to take care of him, to play with him, to teach him. But while I am teaching him, he is also teaching me. And it is the differences between us that teach me the most. . . ...continue reading →

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Is There Any Way?

The night is black, Father; the stars are blind;
And on the path I tread, the way is hard to find.
It’s hard to walk, Father; the wind is cold;
And it torments my heart that there is no hand to hold.
Is there any way that You could find me here?
Is there any way . . . ?
My hope is dead, Father; my faith is weak;
And as I stumble on, the pathway looks so bleak.
My feet, they bleed, Father; my tears, they fall,
And they tumble untouched with no relief at all.
Is there any way You could stop the flow?
Is there any way . . . ? ...continue reading →

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If there were just one other of my kind in this world, one other who shared my cause, I would search them out to the ends of the world; I would pursue their trail until at last I stood side by side with a comrade; and the light of two candles would rise above the rim of the world to drive back the evil, the pain, the sadness.

But there is no other. Alone I fight; alone I burn; alone I watch the stars wheel overhead and the sea cast its waters upon the beach. There is only one rylen in Wundyrr, and it is I.

Still the Candle Burns (by Michayla Roth)

Berwynn is no ordinary girl. She sees too much, knows too much, for that. Gifted with the power to see and command devils, her lot in life is an uncomfortable one, to say the least. Rylen they call her, if they call her anything at all, for few know of her importance in the fate of the world.

But soon her time must come. Finding herself pitted against forces stronger than any she's ever faced before, she joins a small band of mortals in pursuit of reclaiming a world quickly falling to ash. The might of the enemy, evidenced in the bestial army of the Menuri and the spiritual army of the eidolans, is far greater than any they can muster, however, even with a rylen in their midst.

Hope fades to hopelessness, and grey skies fade to black. Only when the last defenses are fallen will victory come, and only then through the power of a simple man the entire world has overlooked. ...continue reading →

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A barren hill, scraped by a listless wind, bald and white against the black sky.

A rabid crowd, garbed in grey, shouting for death but not yet knowing that for One death brings life.

A rough-hewn cross, etched in blood.

A Man.

But I cannot look at the Man, cannot bear to see that skin blackened with blood, that body so tortured by countless stripes and merciless beatings.

So I wander through the crowd, and I search their eyes for any relief from the dread that is overpowering on this day, but I do not find it.

I see the children, with their huge, solemn eyes, and the echo of their late hosannas cracks like thunder through my mind. Their voices are stilled now. There is no joy left in their faces. I see only fear. Fear, and a numbing knowing. ...continue reading →