Novels by Joseph Louis

Asta was standing at the far edge of the clearing.His back to the group.His sword at his side, not raised, not threaded, just held in the hand at the side, the position of something that had been used and had stopped being used and was in the moment after.He was breathing.The breathing was steady. Not the hard breathing of someone who had expended everything they had,the specific steady breathing of someone whose body had done what it had done and was in the state after the doing of it. The trance was still there, still in the quality of the stillness, still in the specific absence from the eyes that had been there before he moved.But it was fading.The way the trance faded was the way things fade when they are fading from the inside,not a visible change, a quality change, the specific quality of the stillness loosening slightly, the body returning to the inhabited quality it had not had for the last ninety seconds.The group had not moved.They were where they had been when Ast

He was behind it.The sword.He moved to the next one before the third figure was fully down.………………..The fourth and fifth figures were together, not because the ring had positioned them together but because the fourth had moved toward the fifth in the time since the first two had gone down, the instinct of things that have seen a predator moving to group with another of their kind.He went at the gap between them.Not at either of them individually, at the space between them, the specific narrow gap between two people who are standing close together, moving through it rather than going around it. The gap was narrow. He was moving at the speed he was moving. The combination of narrow gap and the speed produced the specific effect of something moving through a space that was not quite large enough for it at a velocity that made the not-quite-large-enough not apply.He came out the other side of the gap between them.And turned.The turn was the pivot of someone using their own moment

The thing about the movement was that it did not look like the start of a fight.Fights start with the visible preparation of something that is going to happen, the weight shift, the coil, the specific tensing of a body that is loading itself for the release. The starting of a fight has a shape that eyes can read because the shape is the announcement of the fight.Asta did not announce.He was standing still.Then he was not standing still and he was not in the position he had been in and the between, the gap between the stillness and the new position, was not visible. Not fast in the way that fast things are visible as fast. Fast in the way that things are fast when they are past the threshold where the eye can track the transition and the eye receives only the departure point and the arrival point with nothing in between.He was past Max.Max's expression had not changed. The smirk was still there. The pleasantness was still there. His body was still in the position it had been in w

At the flame that was always present, always there, the origin flame of the Emperor Dragon sitting in the vessel and giving off its specific warmth in the cold of the realm.He looked at Asta with the smile.Asta was looking at him.At Max's face.At the smile.At the twelve cloaked figures.At Roderick's jaw and Mira's hands and Yuki's stance and all of it, all of the room, the full inventory of the situation.He was very still.Not the stillness of someone who was afraid.Not the stillness of someone who was calculating.The stillness of something that had gone somewhere.Roderick looked at him.At the stillness.At the quality of it, the specific quality that was different from the stillnesses he had seen from Asta before, different in the way that certain things are different from other things in ways that the vocabulary does not immediately supply a word for.He looked at Asta's eyes.At the eyes that were not looking at Max anymore.At the eyes that were not looking at anything

The undergrowth moved.The specific movement of something large enough to displace the undergrowth as it came through it rather than moving around it.Roderick's hand went to his axe.The bushes parted.And every face in the group did the thing that faces do when they see something that is wrong in the specific way of something that cannot be right,the widening, the specific involuntary widening that happens before the brain has given the face permission to do anything.He walked out of the foliage with the specific ease of someone who had been in the foliage intentionally and was exiting it at a time of their choosing.The Crimson Elite Guard cloak.The senior rank detail at the collar and the sleeve.The smirk that had never looked right on a face and had always been on his anyway.Max Voss.Roderick stared at him.He opened his mouth and then closed it."This." He said."Can't be."The words came out the way words come out when the mouth is saying them and the head is still trying

The gap behind them,they pushed deeper into the cave that the gap opened into, the darkness of it immediate and total, the low light of the realm not reaching inside the rock. Their boots on the cave floor. Their breathing, all of them, the hard working breathing of people who have been at full sprint and have stopped at full sprint, the lungs demanding the accounting.The ground shook.The pack hit the rock faceNot the gap, they did not fit in the gap, the specific geometry of the Drakveth not being the geometry of the gap, the eight legs and the width of the body built for open terrain and not for the compression of the narrow. The sound of them hitting the outside of the rock, the frustrated impact of something large that has found a limit.Then the sound of the pack moving past.The thunder of it, the footfalls, all of them, the percussion of the pack in full movement passing the rock face and continuing past it, the specific sound of the problem going away from them in the direc

The beam from Mr Henderson’s staff struck her, but the mirror seemed to absorb the energy, reflecting it back at him with such force that the air itself vibrated.Stiles stumbled back, shielding his eyes from the intensity of the light, feeling the ground beneath him rumble. His father recoiled as if the light burned him, the staff slipping from his grasp as if the power within it had turned against him. Mr Henderson's hands shot up, trying to shield himself, but it was no use."You don't control the darkness, Father.”Stiles muttered, his voice shaky but defiant.The princess stepped forward, her expression resolute as the mirror's light intensified.Mr Henderson's face twisted in pain and rage as the light enveloped him, the dark tendrils of power that had once flowed through him now flickering and dying. For a moment, the man that Stiles had known, the father he’d trusted ,seemed to return, his eyes filled with guilt and regret. But it was fleeting. The darkness clung to him like a

The beam from Mr Henderson’s staff struck her, but the mirror seemed to absorb the energy, reflecting it back at him with such force that the air itself vibrated.Stiles stumbled back, shielding his eyes from the intensity of the light, feeling the ground beneath him rumble. His father recoiled as if the light burned him, the staff slipping from his grasp as if the power within it had turned against him. Mr Henderson's hands shot up, trying to shield himself, but it was no use."You don't control the darkness, Father.”Stiles muttered, his voice shaky but defiant.The princess stepped forward, her expression resolute as the mirror's light intensified.Mr Henderson's face twisted in pain and rage as the light enveloped him, the dark tendrils of power that had once flowed through him now flickering and dying. For a moment, the man that Stiles had known, the father he’d trusted ,seemed to return, his eyes filled with guilt and regret. But it was fleeting. The darkness clung to him like a

He barely registered Miss Laura's presence as he shoved past her, heading straight for the garage door. The cold metal felt like a barricade to the truth, and he needed answers,now.His heart hammered in his chest, every step more frantic than the last. He reached the door, and before he could push it open, Mr Jonathan caught up to him, grabbing his arm."Stiles, slow down. We need to think this through." His voice was calm, controlled, but the anxiety in his eyes betrayed him."I can’t.I have to find my father.”Stiles replied, his voice tight with urgency.The door creaked as Stiles swung it open, his breath catching in his throat. The garage was dark, the air stale with the scent of oil and dust. His eyes scanned the room, but it was empty, save for a few parked cars and scattered tools. No sign of his father."Where is he?.”Stiles muttered to himself, stepping further into the room, his hand grazing the cold metal of a car door."Stiles, we don’t even know if he’s in here,this i

“You’re the one who did this?You set me up, Sophia? You know how much I care about Raya, and you…”Stiles’ voice broke through the silence, the accusation sharp and raw.His words faltered for a second as if the betrayal was too much for him to fully articulate, but the anger in his voice made it clear how deeply this hurt him.Sophia’s gaze flickered, a flicker of something unreadable crossing her face before she masked it with a thin, victorious smile. “I did what I had to do, Stiles. You wouldn’t have learned your lesson any other way. She deserves better than someone like you.”“What, Sophia I can't believe you are being all this shit.”Raya spoke as she gazed at her scornfully.“Cousin, I did it for the betterment of your future.”Sophia spoke as she grabbed Raya's hand.“My BETTERMENT, or do you mean the betterment of the THOMAS’S FAMILY, yes Sophia, I know about everything you guys have been doing, you guys have been trying to take me out from the exclusive contract that was g

Raya finally turned her head, meeting his gaze. Her eyes were hollow, distant, like she was looking through him rather than at him. “Explain? What is there to explain, Stiles? You don’t get to just walk in here like everything’s fine. Not after what you did.”Stiles’s heart clenched at the weight in her voice. She was breaking, but the walls around her were solid as ever.“I didn’t…” His voice faltered. He didn’t know how to make her see. How to make her believe him when every word she’d heard painted him as the villain.“I didn’t mean for it to happen. I never wanted to hurt you, Raya. I swear, I…”“Enough,I don’t want to hear it. You made your choices. You made your bed. Now lie in it.”Raya cut him off, her voice quiet but firm.Her words were like a slap, and they stung worse than anything she could have thrown at him. His chest tightened as if all the air had been sucked from the world, leaving him with nothing but his own failures.The silence that followed felt heavier than b

Mrs Lisa’s gaze softened slightly, but her voice was sharp. “You’re not telling us everything. What did you do, Sophia?.”Sophia’s eyes narrowed. “I told her. Everything. About Stiles kissing a random girl in a restaurant I even sent her a picture of the both of them. She’ll never trust him again. And once that trust is gone, everything falls apart.”Mrs Lisa Thomas face was marked with a smile as she turned and gazed at Mr Thomas, whose face was also marked with a smile.“No wonder why she has not come out of her room since today.”Mrs Lisa spoke.“ I should go and check up on her, you know, for family reasons.”Sophia spoke as she stood up from the couch and walked towards the stairs.“Sophia!”Mr Thomas called out her name.“Yes, uncle.”She replied as she stood halfway up the stairs.“Tell her to get ready for the Henderson Global Conglomerate company Anniversary, which should start in a few minutes, he said he his going to introduce his long lost son to all Oxford valley.”Mr J