I SHALL NOT DIE HERE (BALLADE OF A WARRIOR BOUND), by Jason M. Waltz: Pulled taut, Oh! so painfully taut, cold links stretched tight — chains draped in quantities self-wrought. Loathed, debased, abused — endless pains never dimming, never hiding darker stains of iniquities untold, retold, sold ado . . . All lost; empty favors […]

THE DOME OF FLORENCE, by Richard Marsden: Mahir had to admit to himself The Dome of Florence, even though incomplete, was easily the largest building he had ever encountered. The dome’s arcing columns of slate-gray stone towered over the red-tiled roofs of every building in the city. Even Florence’s impressive walls, designed to fend off […]