Rise of Souls (Prophecy of the Sisters) by Michelle Zink

Author:Michelle Zink
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Published: 2012-07-03T00:00:00+00:00

Una had not wanted to leave Lia and the babies, but Lia had insisted. Una should sound the alarm while Lia woke Dimitri. By the time Una returned, they would have come to an agreement about a course of action.

In the meantime, the rest of the island needed to be warned.

Una flew through the halls of the Sanctuary until she came to a simple wooden door at the back of the building. Flinging the door open, she hurried up the circular stairs to the bell tower, lifting her robe as she ran, not wanting to trip, not wanting to do anything that would slow her progress to the bell, which was the alarm for the island.

She did not hear anything until she reached the top, the tower exposed on all sides to the open air. Then she heard an assortment of muffled shouts, screams, and somewhere in the distance, the clang of metal on metal.

She reached for the rope attached to the bell and pulled, ringing it in three long peals followed by two short ones. She did not know if an order of evacuation had ever been issued for the island, if the people of Altus even remembered the sequence for such an order. If they would know what to do.

But all she could do was ring it, the sound of shouting and screaming below growing louder and more insistent.

When she had completed the fifth peal, she hurried back down the stairs. Some of the Sisters emerged from their rooms as she ran through the halls. They were sleepy, disoriented, their eyes frightened.

“Is it a drill?”

“Who’s been trifling with the…?”

“What on Altus’s verdant hills was that?”

“You heard it!” Una shouted as she ran. “Prepare to fight or evacuate, on the Lady’s orders.”

“But what is she…”

“… this isn’t…”

“The Souls…a threat.”

Una did not have time to stop and explain. To tell them all that the order had been issued for a reason. That Lady Amalia would not have issued it if the threat were not clear and present.

They had been warned. It was all she could do. Now her responsibility lay in protecting Lia and the babies, in seeing them safely off the island.

Returning to Lia and Dimitri’s chamber, she was surprised to find one of the Brothers already posted at the door, a guard who barred her way. She was still explaining her position as Lia’s lady-in-waiting when the door opened.

“Una, come,” Dimitri said, pulling her into the room without a word to the guard. Though Dimitri had been fast asleep, his son at his side, when Una left to sound the alarm, he was now clear-eyed and alert. “There is no time to waste.”

She stepped into the room and closed the door behind her. The noise from outside was louder now. Shouting—occasionally broken by a scream, the collision of swords—made its way through the thick walls and windows of the Sanctuary. In the few minutes it had taken her to sound the warning, the situation had clearly deteriorated. She thought fleetingly of Fenris and the girl from the beach, wondering if they had made it to safety.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.