The Grace Year by Kim Liggett

Author:Kim Liggett
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

The sound of a serrated blade tearing through cloth seeps into my senses. There’s blazing heat along my back, my spine. Long, even breath pulsing against the nape of my neck. A heavy weight on top of me, all around me. I try to stay disconnected from my body, unaware, the way I used to drift away during a punishment in the square, but as life returns to my limbs, so does the pain. A deep throbbing sensation on my left shoulder.

When the heat against my back leaves me, I see a man walk across the room, stark naked, pure muscle roiling beneath flesh. I want to scream, I want to wail, but I can’t find the air. Every bit of my energy is being taken up with violent shivering. My teeth are clattering so hard I’m afraid they might break. A blur of charcoal fabric swells in the corner of the room and the poacher is back. Black eyes boring into me from the void.

Hovering over me, he pours rancid liquid down my throat. I try to spit it out, but he holds his hand over my mouth, forcing me to swallow.

A flash of gleaming steel, followed by the sharpest pain I’ve ever felt.

The blade digs into my flesh. It feels like he’s tearing my arm off, but it happens again and again and again, more times than I have skin on my arm. I know they believe the more pain, the more potent the flesh, but it’s a lie. I want to tell him the magic isn’t real, that all he’s doing is killing someone in cold blood, but something tells me it wouldn’t even matter.

As the heavy liquid spreads through my chest, I know what this means. I know what this is. Death isn’t just coming for me … it’s here.

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