Part II Chapter 3 Gold Sandi is gone before I’m out of the shower. I take my time. The bra is a problem — leaking again, that slow persistent gold that has no respect for schedules or dignity. I rifle through my bag for something absorbent, find nothing, stand there dripping and furious. A throat-clearing…
Tag: The COMC Files
The COMC Files-Alkebulan
Part II Chapter 2 Sandi “I’ll help you,” Sandi murmurs. She does — her hands soft, kindness in the way she peels my dress away. The moment my breasts are free I hear her breath change. I close my eyes, breathing in the steamy hush, pulse still thrumming with gold and fear and the old…
The COMC Files – Alkebulan
Part II Chapter 1 Convergence Mikael Sahel dust still on my boots. Iron tang of gunmetal, old blood — layered beneath my skin by now, permanent. Isaa and his men, gone. Spent shells in the sand. Justice. Never clean, never simple. No victory. Just necessity. Elena. The bright line. The only clarity in this landscape…
The Holographer’s Atlas
The Iliya piece concludes in three parts — March 13, 14, and 15 at 11 AM — on Ream. https://reamstories.com/creator-hub/story/content/mm5evjtfb32335/ebook Some stories ask to be finished in a quieter room. This is one of them. — I.Ph. de Lange
The COMC Files-Book VI Matriarchs
Chapter 36 Kayar Karim ducks outside to find food, returning a while later with a plate of spicy thieboudienne — fish, rice, and vegetables, the flavours bright and grounding. We sit cross-legged on the floor, devouring each bite. For the first time since the storm on the ship, I feel hunger fading and strength seeping…
The COMC Files-Book VI Matriarchs
Chapter 35 El Amal Then it happens. A surge, hot and wild, ripples up my spine. My belly — the curve that has grown over four months — begins to glow. Not faint, not gentle, but intense: a gold, radiant pulse that lights the cramped cabin from within. The world flares yellow-white, power spilling through…
The COMC Files-Book VI Matriarchs
Chapter 34 Nouakchott Karim catches my glance, his face open and honest — a silent promise in his shy beauty. “You attract wolves, Elena,” he murmurs, a wry smile at his lips. “Fortunately, not all of them bite.” I can’t help wondering how my heart has room for all three. Karim’s shy, steady devotion. Tarmo’s…
The COMC-Files- Book VI Matriarchs
Chapter 33 Chinguetti Yet with every step, I feel the contradiction more keenly: treated as precious but forced to remain at the edges of trust. All I want is to sit under a fig tree with bystanders and stories, to be an ear, not an exhibit. Tomorrow, I decide, I will negotiate harder. Today, I…
The COMC Files-Book VI Matriarchs
Chapter 32 Listeners We rattle into Chinguetti mid-afternoon, dust trailing behind us like the tail of a slow comet. From a distance, the city seems built entirely of old secrets and the sort of stone that looks better in faded postcards. Minarets slice the sun, jagged and serene. The desert hush settles—ninety per cent heat,…
AUTHOR’S NOTE — The Holographer’s Atlas: Iliya
The Atlas started as a collection of what the novels couldn’t hold. Not because the material was too raw — rawness I can manage — but because these particular memories belong to the writer, not to Elena. Elena is still becoming. The writer has already been. That distinction matters more than it might appear. Guido…
The C.O.M.C. Files 