TRUTH, by by Aidan Redwing<\/p>\n
I taste the words
\nlike blood in my mouth
\nbecause no one I love is safe
\nand you don’t deserve peace.<\/p>\n
I feel the anger in my veins
\nas a I stare at my hands,
\ntrembling at the thought
\nthat the hands of a bard should carry a blade.
\nBut, you have made a warrior of a poet
\nand if my ink is to be stricken from the page
\nthen I shall write history
\nin the blood of the slain.<\/p>\n
Compassion cannot help but fail
\nwhen kindness is taken for weakness
\nand you have stripped me of all but my rage.<\/p>\n
This blade I carry,
\nthis burden you have forced upon me,
\nbares but one name.<\/p>\n
It is Truth
\nand I have spoken.<\/p>\n
________________________________________<\/span><\/p>\n Aidan Redwing can be found telling tales of elves, pirates and other fantastical beings to any willing to lend an ear. They are happily Canadian, and acknowledge that they live on the traditional territory of the Mi\u2019kmaq. When not telling stories, they can be found having their own adventures at LARP or around the TTRPG table with friends. Ravens can reach them at a.redwing.writing@gmail.com<\/a> or you can find them on Facebook and join the crew! Their most recent works include The King\u2019s Blade\u00a0<\/a> (heroic Fantasy Quarterly) and A Murder of Elves (Emerge 2025, Tidewater Press<\/a>)<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" TRUTH, by by Aidan Redwing I taste the words like blood in my mouth because no one I love is safe and you don’t deserve peace. I feel the anger in my veins as a I stare at my hands, trembling at the thought that the hands of a bard should carry a blade. But, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[91,3,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-issue-66-archive","category-main","category-poetry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heroicfantasyquarterly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heroicfantasyquarterly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heroicfantasyquarterly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heroicfantasyquarterly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heroicfantasyquarterly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4538"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.heroicfantasyquarterly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4538\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4539,"href":"https:\/\/www.heroicfantasyquarterly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4538\/revisions\/4539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heroicfantasyquarterly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heroicfantasyquarterly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heroicfantasyquarterly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}