Sky Raiders by Brandon Mull

Author:Brandon Mull [Mull, Brandon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Aladdin
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER

19

ASIA AND LIAM

Cole stared up at the woman through the netting. How should he answer? He hesitated, as did the others. She stopped right in front of him, glaring down.

“Don’t lie,” she said humorlessly. “I’ll know. Spit it out.”

“I’m Cole,” he said. “I’m not from here. The Outskirts, I mean. I came here to help my friends who got kidnapped, but I was taken as a slave and sold to the Sky Raiders. I was escaping from them with some friends.”

“You,” she said, approaching Twitch, “are not as you appear.”

Cole noticed that his wings were gone. Had that been his special item? Wings?

“I’m not,” Twitch said. “I’m from Elloweer. I was taken as a slave as well.”

“How did you revert to your true form?” she pressed.

“I have a ring,” he said.

“And you?” she asked Jace.

“Why do you care?” Jace replied.

“You’re all trespassers,” she barked. “I handle any intruders.”

“You have a name?” Jace asked.

“I have three—Judge, Jury, and Executioner. Answer me or perish. Who are you? Why did you come here?”

Jace gave a reluctant sigh. “I’ve been a slave since I can remember. I never knew my parents. I was sold to the Sky Raiders because my owners hated me. I was escaping with these guys.”

“Escaping into the cloudwall? Do you know nothing?”

“We were cornered,” Jace said.

She gave a single nod and walked to Mira. “And you?”

“You can probably guess by now,” Mira said.

“I cannot,” the woman said. “You are not as you appear. There is a potent shaping bound to you. Something I can’t readily identify. And I sense a degree of power in you as well.”

“Are you a shaper?”

A slight sneer curled her lip. “You’ve never met my equal.”

“I do a little shaping,” Mira said. “Maybe that’s what you’re sensing.”

“Evade my questions at your peril,” the woman said, snapping her fingers.

One of the stony giants stomped forward and raised a misshapen fist above Mira. The big rocky limb was large enough to flatten half of her with one blow.

Jace’s golden rope flashed out from his net, coiling around the woman’s throat. “Call it off,” he growled.

A young man swooshed into view, standing on a silver disk the size of a manhole cover. Not older than twenty, he had boyish features and mischievous eyes. He wore a fuzzy brown jacket and alligator-skin boots, and he held what looked like silver salt shakers in each hand. Knees slightly bent, he hovered perhaps ten feet off the ground, although the disk had no visible means of propulsion.

“That’s enough,” the young man said in a friendly tone. Pointing at the rope, it unraveled from the woman’s throat and fell limply to the grass. Chopping a hand toward the stone giant, it turned to cardboard and staggered back a few paces.

Glowering, the woman turned to the newcomer. “This is none of your affair.”

“I did make the fliers,” the young man corrected. “And I overheard the conversation.”

Jace kept flicking his wrist, but his golden rope didn’t respond any differently than an ordinary rope would. “What did you do to it?”

“I cut it off from you,” the young man said offhandedly.

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