Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 140780 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 704(@200wpm)___ 563(@250wpm)___ 469(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 140780 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 704(@200wpm)___ 563(@250wpm)___ 469(@300wpm)
No older than six or seven, her skin was littered with silver scars. Just like my arms had been when I’d lived in Cinderkeep.
Why was she trading blood for food?
Where the hell did she come from?
Sweating and shaking, I dropped to one knee. Wiping the glistening, still-warm blood from the slaughtered guards onto my thighs, I did my best to stay human.
The little girl fought her terror and eyed me, her black hair knotted and covered with hay, her bare feet so thick with dirt, it looked like she wore socks.
“Please?” She trembled, her rags shivering. The tattered holes around her torso revealed ribs beneath. “Food? Give me food for my blood?” Shoving her scarred arm under my nose, she wrinkled her tiny nose. “I’m hungry.”
She peered into my eyes...
And reeled backward.
Pinching the bridge of my nose, I commanded the fire to stop trying to rule me. I needed to swallow it down—to remove the scarlet line that’d undoubtedly appeared around my pupils.
But it fought me. Burned me. Without Rook’s frost, I wasn’t strong enough, but...I was here because of this little girl. I was here to find out what the fuck was going on in this mountain.
Focus!
Locking everything down, my voice came out smoky and sharp. “Who are you?”
She held her bowl higher, her lips pinched and collarbones stark. “Take my blood. I won’t tell. But you’ll give me food, won’t you? The others did.”
My hands shook as I took her bowl and placed it beside the dead guards. She didn’t even give them a second glance. As if death was nothing to notice.
Sweat poured down my back. My heart slammed so violently, it threatened to rupture.
I could feel my control slipping. Feel the wrath winning. But...I couldn’t hurt her.
If I let go, I would melt this entire mountain.
If I lost control, everybody in it would die.
That knowledge was enough to keep me sane...for now.
Standing, I held out my hand. “Can you take me to where you live? Are there others down below?”
She eyed up my bloody fingers, then shrugged and placed her fragile, tiny hand in mine. “Okay.”
I staggered as the power inside me snarled.
It wanted to burn.
Burn them all.
Burn every-fucking-thing to the ground.
Forcing a smile, I let her lead me deeper into hell.
* * * * *
The heart of the Eastern Crucible wasn’t a reactor.
It was a prison.
I lost the ability to breathe as the little girl guided me into the mountain’s belly, leading me into caverns bigger than the Dragon Courtyard. Other caves branched off, illuminated with lightbulbs bolted to the rock, casting shadows and glare.
The smell made my stomach turn over.
Rot and blood, death and waste.
Divots in the rock had become sleeping areas for anyone lucky enough to claim them. Stuffed with rancid hay and achingly cold, threadbare blankets looked as damp as the stone walls. Rats darted about—narrowly missing being caught by a group of starving men, the clink of their chains bouncing off the low ceiling.
My heart caught fire as the little girl tugged me deeper into her terrible home. Shallow troughs were filled with stagnant water. Several bodies lay where they’d died, and those lucky enough—or condemned enough—to still be alive, watched me with sunken, hopeless eyes.
Other men and women barely looked up as I walked past with my little guide, their ankles and wrists oozing from iron shackles. A huddled group of children glowered at me; one gnawed on a tiny bone—hinting at some point they’d been successful in hunting the rats.
Further in, cages lined an entire wall.
Animals looked through the bars. Goats and dogs, cows and pigs until we got to the end where a bear, a fox, and an emaciated panther brought tears to my fucking eyes. Just ribs and bone, its black pelt rubbed raw with sores.
That could’ve been Whisper.
Any of these poor fucking people could’ve been me and Rook.
Blood roared in my ears.
Chains clinked behind me.
I turned as a trio of young women shuffled past, holding onto each other as they wobbled, bringing water to fill up the animals’ dry bowls.
Every moment, the fire grew worse.
It sank deep, deep inside me, going dangerously quiet and ferociously hot.
In the distance, someone screamed. My gaze shot to another small cave where a group of women huddled on their knees. A man rocked a woman who lay with her head on his lap. Tears ran down his cheeks as he held her hand, supporting her as she gave birth.
Her belly was enormous, but her body was skeletal. Blood streaked her inner thighs as the women helped her deliver.
“Please,” she begged, her voice bouncing off the cave. “Please don’t let it live. Don’t let it become like us.”
One of the women cried as she did her best to ease the mother-to-be’s pain. “We can’t. You know what they’ll do—”
“Kill it!” The woman thrashed, making the man holding her sob harder. “Don’t let them take it. Don’t let it suffer like we do. Don’t let them—”