Remains of Urth by Jennifer Martucci & Christopher Martucci

Author:Jennifer Martucci & Christopher Martucci [Martucci, Jennifer & Martucci, Christopher]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2020-03-27T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 9

I startle awake to the sound of the cell door opening. I don’t know how long I’ve been asleep or what time it is, but I assume it’s in the hours before dawn. My body senses it, has that bone-tired weariness unique to middle of the night stirrings. Feeling as though I’m being sucked into the floor by an unseen force, I rally every bit of strength I have and prop myself up onto my elbows. Opposing the pull is a challenge. I’m exhausted in every sense of the word, yet something deep inside me warns that I need to fight the fatigue and stay alert.

Straining to see through the gloom of the windowless cell, I make out a shape. Large and hulking, I immediately recognize it as belonging to the Urthman who not only placed us in our cells, but also insisted on separating us. Wan light from an object at his hip draws my gaze to his face. His oblong head bulges on one side. His eyes are black, but rimmed in ruby-red, and one hangs markedly lower than the other, lending his appearance an aspect of fright that nearly matches his imposing height. He does not have a nose, just holes that are larger and deeper looking than any other Urthman I have had the misfortune of seeing, and his mouth is little more than a cruel slash across the lower half of his face. He rears his head back and the slash widens to reveal jagged teeth that resemble rows of sharpened arrow tips, and I feel my heart stop mid-beat. I hadn’t noticed just how grotesque he is earlier. I’d been too worried about Ara, then too distracted by Reyna. Now, however, in the deepest part of the night, when everyone sleeps, a veritable monster stands in my wake. I immediately tense at the sight of him, my hand flying to reach over my shoulder instinctively, to where my blade was always sheathed. Nothing is there, of course. I was stripped of my weapons days earlier. The hideous Urthman lingers in the doorway for several moments before entering. He doesn’t enter this side of the conjoined cells. Instead, he stays on the side the females occupy, moving from one sleeping girl to the next. He inches dangerously close to my sister, stopping. He stares at her for a long while, setting my heart racing at a gallop. Worry plagues me. No longer feeling as though they’re made of lead, my muscles bunch and my body jerks upright. All I can think of is that I will kill the towering, monstrous Urthman where he stands with my bare hands if he so much as lays a finger on Ara, though I have no idea how. Bars keep me from him, from protecting her. Still, I’m ready to spring to my feet and attack when finally he moves past her and grabs the arm of a girl who sleeps beside her and looks to be about sixteen.

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