The Kingdoms Of Dust: The Necromancer Chronicles: Book Three by Amanda Downum

Author:Amanda Downum [Downum, Amanda]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9780748124602
Publisher: Hachette Littlehampton
Published: 2012-03-01T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 17

Melantha dreamed of Khalil, sunken and cold, frozen like an insect in amber. She woke sick and desperate to flee Qais, but that wasn’t an option. As an agent she had a great deal of autonomy, but cowardice ran counter to her oaths.

And having delivered Moth here, she couldn’t abandon the girl. Instead, she set out to gain her trust.

At first it was simple things: taking meals together; granting her the freedom of the kitchens; providing new clothes. The only books in Selafaïn she could find were heavy thaumaturgical texts, but she offered them anyway; Moth didn’t refuse.

On the second night, Moth tried to escape. She made it out of the Chanterie, only to be captured in the street by Salah’s guards. Since she neither harmed the maid she’d slipped past nor attacked the guards, Melantha didn’t speak of it.

On the fourth night, she tried the window. Melantha discovered her empty room at dawn, the shutters thrown wide. After a quarter hour of peering through shadows with growing concern, Melantha found the girl on the Chanterie’s roof, crouching between the low battlement and an empty stone planter. By then the shadows were too thin to step through, so she climbed the inside stairs to the rooftop entrance.

The trapdoor was harder to open than she remembered—when sheets of sand cascaded through the gap, she understood why. Dust and grit and pigeon droppings piled in ankle-high drifts. Sweeping the roof had been a task for slow apprentices when she was a child, but Qais had long ago run out of apprentices.

Moth glared as Melantha climbed onto the roof, a flush rising in her cheeks. Melantha fought down a laugh.

“It’s easier to climb up than down, isn’t it?” From the narrowing of Moth’s eyes, she hadn’t quite dulled the bright edge of laughter from her voice. “I learned that the hard way, too.”

She studied the wide expanse of roof, mazed with plant boxes full of dead earth. Even in her youth more of those had stood empty than not. “It must have been green up here once, and beautiful.”

“What happened?” Moth asked, brushing with little effect at her dusty trousers.

Melantha shrugged. “Time. Time and apathy.”

“How can you stand it here?” It was the most emotion she’d heard in Moth’s voice since the girl stopped fighting.

“I can’t. I hate it. But I endure because I have to, because I’ve sworn my service here, and Quietus’s work must be done.”

“Oh.” Moth took a few hesitant steps closer. Closer to the hook. “What work?”

“Did you see the ghost wind that came to Sherazad?” The girl’s wince was answer enough. “Quietus is sworn to keep the storm bound.” She raised a hand to forestall Moth’s sarcastic retort. “The seals are failing, faster every time we renew them. That’s why my mother wants Iskaldur’s help.”

“So you kidnapped me.” Moth’s eyebrows rose.

Melantha didn’t bother to hide her defensive shrug. “It was a bad idea. I panicked.”

“Why?”

“That’s not your concern.” This was a familiar game—the fine balance of truth

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