Small Gems – Rapport by Carole Cummings
The children of the gods play their games, sometimes very dangerous games in which winning means escaping with one’s life. But sometimes those games are little more than an unconcealed pleasure to show superiority over the weak and the helpless who can be controlled and manipulated, trespassed against simply because it can be done. Or maybe it was merely a test, an attempt to find an answer to the question, why him?
It’s been made very clear that Kamen Malick is unlike the gods’ other children, and it’s that difference that made him first a curiosity, easily misjudged, certainly underestimated as the immortal who is weakened by his humanity; then an ally, then more to Skel, who has been, until now, little more than a ghostly presence in the series and whose death has haunted Malick.
Skel was the stepping stone which began Asai’s path to Fen Jacin-rei. He was a tool and a sacrifice in a bid for superiority and domination, and the price he paid was steep.
There’s an undeniable urge to recommend Rapport even if you’ve never read a single word of the Wolf’s-own series. It’s one thing to be able to read and appreciate a story for its rich atmosphere and lush writing, but it’s entirely another to read a story about characters you know nothing about and may not appreciate unless you know something about the world they inhabit and the ways in which they struggle to discover who they are and what their purpose is in the grand scheme of things.
There’s something to be said for seduction, though, and there’s no question this is a seductive scene. Maybe this free short is exactly the sort of enticement you need to draw you into an entirely provocative world. I’m so glad I’m already there.
Download Rapport FREE HERE.
