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    Crossing the Naiad
    Crossing the Naiad
    Crossing the Naiad
    Ebook38 pages23 minutes

    Crossing the Naiad

    By J.M. Ney-Grimm

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Ancient, cold, and perilous.

    Its truth forgotten in the mists of time, the old bridge harbors a lethal secret. Neither marble statues awakened for battle nor an ancient roadbed grown hungry, something darker and more primal haunts the stones and the wild river below.

    Kimmer knows the stories, but she doesn't know why the crumbling span feels so fraught with menace. Her way home lies across the ruin. Dare she take it? Or will horror from the lost past rise up to claim her, when she does?


    PRAISE FOR J.M. NEY-GRIMM

    "...the world depicted is magical, but the people are very real." - Smashwords review of Troll-magic

    "...left me craving more." - Amazon review of Sarvet's Wanderyar

    "She has an ethereal sort of quality to her writing which is extremely effective-all the more so because I can't pin down exactly why. It's almost mystical. This ephemeral tone is what sets her work apart from anything else I've read-it's absolutely unique, and absolutely engaging." - Speaking to the Eyes review of Perilous Chance

    "Her work compares favorably with Robin McKinley and Patricia McKillip ...I'm really pleased to have discovered her!" - Amazon review of Troll-magic


    PRAISE FOR CROSSING THE NAIAD

    "A quick, refreshing piece of literature. Like a cool sip of water after a grueling endurance marathon . . . It's swift and concise, but the prose is eloquent and deft, to the point, yet gracefully articulate . . . again I am enthralled with the completeness of the picture the author is painting. The world comes to life . . ." - Goodreads review


    EXCERPT FROM CROSSING THE NAIAD

    She stood looking across the bridge, feeling the cool breeze and . . . something wrong.

    The bridge was old - the leached stones worn by weather and time, a structure of ancient Silmaren.

    But that wasn't it.

    Something - sinister? - rose from its broken paving. A miasma of despair and defeat that had nothing to do with its gap-toothed balustrade, the holes in its surface giving wide views of the forested ravine and fast river below, or the crumbling statue of a toga-draped maiden from the past ages of the world.

    Kimmer hesitated.

    The new bridge, upstream and crossing low to the water rather than high from one steep brink to the other, was flooded and unsafe.

    Oga and Chedli and Deas - the goats - had balked. Likely they knew, and . . . only a fool would risk a span immersed in a swift current.

    But she had to get home somehow.


    ABOUT THE AUTHOR

    J.M. Ney-Grimm lives with her husband and children in Virginia, just east of the Blue Ridge Mountains. She's learning about permaculture gardening and debunking popular myths about food. The rest of the time she reads Robin McKinley, Diana Wynne Jones, and Lois McMaster Bujold, plays boardgames like Settlers of Catan, rears her twins, and writes stories set in her troll-infested North-lands. Look for her novels and novellas at your favorite bookstore - online or on Main Street.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJ.M. Ney-Grimm
    Release dateJul 11, 2017
    ISBN9781386323006
    Crossing the Naiad
    Author

    J.M. Ney-Grimm

    J.M. Ney-Grimm lives with her husband and children in Virginia, just east of the Blue Ridge Mountains. She's learning about permaculture gardening and debunking popular myths about food. The rest of the time she reads Robin McKinley, Diana Wynne Jones, and Lois McMaster Bujold, plays boardgames like Settlers of Catan, rears her twins, and writes stories set in her troll-infested North-lands. Look for her novels and novellas at your favorite bookstore—online or on Main Street.

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      Book preview

      Crossing the Naiad - J.M. Ney-Grimm

      Crossing the Naiad

      ~ KAUNIS CLAN SAGA ~

      In which Sarvet of the Hammarleedings

      makes a cameo appearance,

      pursuing an adventure on her wanderyar

      by J.M. Ney-Grimm

      Copyright © 2013 J.M. Ney-Grimm

      Cover art:

      Fairy by Branislav Ostojic / Dreamstime

      Additional images:

      Lithograph of a Mountain Goat by H. Weir

      and

      The Lady Clare by John William Waterhouse

      are in the public domain

      The Plaka Bridge at Epirus, Greece by Salamouras Spyros

      is used under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license

      For Mary Anna

      And with many thanks

      to Stuart Jaffe

      for the title

      Table of Contents

      Crossing the Naiad

      Author Bio

      More Titles by J.M. Ney-Grimm

      Crossing the Naiad

      She stood looking across the bridge, feeling the cool breeze and . . . something wrong.

      The bridge was old – the leached stones worn by weather and time, a structure of ancient Silmaren.

      But that wasn’t it.

      Something – sinister? – rose from its broken paving. A miasma of despair and defeat that had nothing to do with its gap-toothed balustrade, the holes in its surface giving wide views of the forested ravine and fast river below, or the crumbling statue of a toga-draped maiden from the past ages of the world.

      Kimmer hesitated.

      The new bridge, upstream and crossing low to the water rather than high from one steep brink to the other, was flooded and unsafe.

      Oga and Chedli and Deas – the goats – had balked. Likely they knew, and . . . only a fool would risk a span immersed in a swift current.

      But she had to get home somehow.

      She’d been to the far pastures where the grass billowed thick and lush, a day’s journey, and spent two nights.

      Mama said the goats were dowly because they needed copper salts. A spell of cropping the cocksfoot in the foothills beyond the river would put them right.

      And it seemed she was correct.

      Oga pranced perkily behind her. Kimmer could

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