(eng) Marina Finlayson - The Proving 01 by Twiceborn

Author:Twiceborn [Twiceborn]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

They like to call them villages up here, these suburbs sprawled either side of the Great Western Highway as it snakes its way up the mountains, as if harking back to some romantic cobblestoned English ideal. But they’re as full of concrete, glass and asphalt as any other part of Greater Sydney. McDonald’s hasn’t gained a foothold, which is a source of great pride among the residents, but there’s not much else to show you’re in the mountains, till you round a bend and catch a glimpse of tree-covered slopes falling away to the side of the road.

“Can you smell smoke?” I asked.

Garth, at the wheel again, frowned at me in the rear vision mirror. “You can smell that?”

“Sure.” It seemed pretty strong to me, but Luce and Ben shook their heads.

“How come your nose is as good as mine?”

It was a fair question. Suspicion was his natural state, but for once he had a point. Was I going to turn into a werewolf? Or did I have to wait till the full moon? But surely Garth of all people wouldn’t be asking if that was the reason. He’d know if he’d infected me.

So why was my sense of smell as good as a werewolf’s?

“There were fires at Lithgow this morning,” Luce said. “Maybe they’ve spread.”

Maybe. There was certainly enough fuel. The bulk of the Blue Mountains was national park—hectare after hectare of bushland, all dry as tinder at this time of year. Its beauty made the area a popular place to live, but every summer the residents paid the price with months of living on alert. Some years bushfires raged unchecked in the more inaccessible areas, burning out thousands of hectares. If it was a really bad year, homes were lost, but every year the threat of fire hung over the area like a pall of smoke.

I stared out the window and sighed. It wasn’t only the heightened sense of smell. There was that conversation in the motel last night. Even though Luce had dragged Garth into the bathroom to whisper to him, I’d still overheard. Much as I’d have liked to blame it on shoddy insulation, taken with the acute sense of smell and my new party trick of seeing auras round shifters, it all pointed to some supernatural explanation.

And the aura thing had started before Garth attacked me.

I let my head fall back against the seat and tried to ignore the other three. They’d been arguing since we’d left Leura, and all through the meal we stopped for on the way.

“Even if they let us in, they’re not going to accept you two,” Ben said for the third or fourth time. “They must know who you are.”

“There are precedents,” Luce said, “if you go back far enough.”

“From what I’ve heard of Alicia, she’s even more paranoid than usual for a dragon. She’s never going to trust someone so highly placed in a rival’s camp.”

“I don’t see why we’re bothering with Alicia anyway,” Garth grumbled. Luce started to speak and he cut her off.

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