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    Lessons Learned: A Rys World Short Story
    Lessons Learned: A Rys World Short Story
    Lessons Learned: A Rys World Short Story
    Ebook40 pages33 minutes

    Lessons Learned: A Rys World Short Story

    By Tracy Falbe

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    A rash act of defiance will thrust Shan into a high stakes competition with Onja, his lover, his queen.

    His compassion for a mere human starts his descent into a dangerous test that he is not prepared for. Then, his desire to be his own master drives him to continue. Shan feels his magic growing inside him. He sees the good that can be accomplished if only he can stop the vicious queen who has ruled over the rys and her human worshippers for centuries.

    Step into the epic world of the rys with this short story from the Rys World that inspired eight other fantasy novels by Tracy Falbe.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTracy Falbe
    Release dateOct 2, 2016
    ISBN9781370081622
    Author

    Tracy Falbe

    I have been hooked on fantasy and science fiction since preschool when I watched Star Trek the Original Series with my family on TV. Then came Star Wars at the theater when I was 5, and a few years later, I discovered the joys of reading fantasy with the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings.The elements I like most about the genres are the high stakes (save the world, overthrow the empire, etc.), the diversity of characters, and how magic or extraordinary technology allows plots to expand in interesting ways. The ability of fantasy and sci fi to include analysis and criticisms of social conditions like religion and politics is especially fascinating as well. When this is done in conventional fiction, people and readers descend into arguments about whether an opinion is valid or the historical information is accurate instead of assessing the concepts themselves.Of course, fantasy and sci fi can just be fun as well. I love a good hero or heroine and villains can be the best of all. And there is something therapeutic about picking up a sword or blaster and solving the problems of the world.My taste in genre has inevitably married itself to my love of writing. For some reason I am a person capable of writing novels. The act of creating thousands of pages of fiction does not overwhelm me. Making it a good work of fiction is the hard part that requires countless hours of editing and rewriting and lots of daydreaming too.When I'm not writing, my other passions include cooking, growing food, reducing my plastic waste, raising rabbits, spinning wool, and reading.

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      Book preview

      Lessons Learned - Tracy Falbe

      Preface

      As a Rys World short story, Lessons Learned presents a crucial episode between Queen Onja and Shan that takes place over four hundred years before the events in The Rys Chronicles.

      The presence of the humans was thick in the Jingten Valley. Shan could feel them in his homeland. Their bodies touched his sensitive mind with the energy of their short lives. If he applied himself, he could even feel the pumping pulse of their hearts and understand their thoughts in all of their languages.

      It was the height of the tribute season, and tribal delegations were approaching the city of Jingten or departing.

      This morning, a delegation from the Zenglawa Tribe entered the city. The King came with a sampling of wives and retainers. Three dozen of his warriors guarded his wagons laden with gold, jewels, food, and other goods of fine crafting.

      Jingten with its blue stone buildings and copper roofs accepted the Zenglawa caravan like the bored host of a tedious party. The caravans came every year. They were supposed to come. For centuries, the tribes had brought their gifts to Onja, their Queen, their Goddess.

      For a hundred years now, Shan had stood upon the balconies of Onja’s Keep and watched the humans come into the city of the rys. He could see over the city from the heights of the massive Keep. Its receding tiers of dark stone lorded over the city in stark contrast to the residential architecture of the rest of Jingten. The city was old, built to last, and the buildings were accented with stained glass windows in colors from tender lavenders to bold red. The homes and buildings set gracefully amid the manicured hedges and ancient trees in dignified permanence.

      The sharp-edged Keep, however, jutted up from the shore of Lake Nin and dominated the cityscape like a bear rolling on flowers. A high stone wall contained its yards and metal gates where ornate birds locked claws guarded the entrance with enchanted wrought iron. The Keep announced the power of the Queen and declared that none should ever dare to challenge her authority.

      Shan loved Queen Onja. She had been his caretaker and teacher, and she was more than that now. Onja spared him loneliness. A gulf separated Shan from the rest of his kind. He possessed powers far beyond the typical rys. Indeed, his talent had been so special that Onja took him into her arms as a rysling, orphaned, and bereft of kin.

      He focused on the soft lamb’s wool tunic in his hands. He gathered the fine fabric that had come from the loom of some unknown but skilled lowland woman and pulled the tunic over his head. He slipped his long blue arms into the sleeves and slid

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