City of Hope and Ruin by Kit Campbell & Siri Paulson

Author:Kit Campbell & Siri Paulson [Campbell, Kit & Paulson, Siri]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Turtleduck Press
Published: 2016-05-10T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

BRIONY

Stupid Kishan. Briony brushed the hair out of her face and ducked underneath a low hanging branch, staying well back from the vine dangling off one end. He suspected, but she wasn’t sure what. Every time she looked up from her work he was watching her, and she’d woken once in the middle of the night to find him doing the same, a blank, unreadable expression on his face.

Well, too bad. She had to figure out a way to stop the Scarred from reaching the City, and that was the end of it. More and more tales filtered in from the border, but now they involved rumors of marching troops and large, metal vehicles, clearly visible in Scarred territory. They were coming, Briony didn’t doubt, and this new war would be bad enough without the Scarred getting access to what the Old Ones had known.

Beside her, Poes stopped and turned his head, looking behind them. Briony did likewise, peering through the dark of the forest, but she couldn’t see anything. Poes looked for a moment longer, then resumed padding through the undergrowth.

She hoped she wasn’t too late to meet Theo. Briony hadn’t been able to think of some way to get out of dinner with Kishan, so she’d just taken off without telling him when he was in the other part of the shop. Hopefully he’d assume she’d gone to see Jael and the children. If not, well—she was going to have to tell him what was going on eventually.

The trees started to thin and the lake loomed before her. It was so large; Briony couldn’t see the other side. Was that whole space Theo’s city? Briony hurried forward, looking for Theo’s glow. Instead, a dark mass sat on the edge of the water. Briony slid to a stop, then slipped behind one of the trees, listening to some instinct deep within her. It was just in time—the mass stood, and Briony could make out the general shape of a person. But what were they doing in the water?

For a wild moment, she thought it might be Carys, that the other woman had escaped the Scarred’s destruction of her cottage, but the figure turned its head, and the waning sunlight reflected off of the mask on its face.

Briony’s breath caught in her throat. A Scarred? Here? Did that mean that they’d figured out where the City was?

But why only one?

Beside her, Poes growled low in his throat and bared his teeth. Briony laid one hand on him, though she wasn’t sure whether it was to stay him or calm her own nerves.

The Scarred looked around for a moment before returning to its work in the water. What if Theo came now? Briony wrapped one hand around her amulet, as if she could will the connection to not work. The Scarred would see her, would know it was in the right area, if it didn’t already.

Maybe she could distract it—throw rocks at it or something to get it to go away.

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