The Lady of Rapture by Sarah Raughley

Author:Sarah Raughley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books
Published: 2024-04-16T00:00:00+00:00

FAMINE

TRUTHFULLY, SHE STILL WANTED TO KILL him. But she couldn’t. He was the only one she was not allowed to kill. So she went somewhere else instead.

Hiva knew of the Solar Jumps. She’d memorized them in the days she’d watched the Naacal use them to transport goods and slaves—and then weapons to kill her. With them she could travel with ease. And with ease she chose her targets and destroyed her prey.

She traveled past the eastern border of Prussia, where a Polish-speaking congregation trudged across the fields of yellow wheat and dirt roads with what little possessions they couldn’t sell. Men, women, and children, many starving and terrified as armed soldiers forced them onward. They’d been expelled from their homes by a ruthless government seeking to cleanse the land. She put them out of their misery. Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust.

All would one day meet their end. Even the children. Murder was Hiva’s mercy, her divine strategy so that humanity could live again. But there were some, Hiva felt, who deserved to die. Some whose deaths she would relish. She would hunt them. This was her judgment.

Hiva traced one such anima into a grand manor in the countryside. There he stood at the center of a parlor, surrounded by the country’s parliament members. Among them were many pristine jackets and military uniforms, but none more fanciful than the many-layered coat he wore to match his high red boots and bedazzled cane.

“Gentlemen,” he said in perfect German. “Lend your support to me, not Bellerose. You can’t tell me you trust a woman more than you trust me.”

“Benini, even a woman is preferable to you,” said one man smoking a cigar. His white mustache stretched and curled around his cheeks.

Swirling a glass of red wine, Riccardo Benini snarled. “Van der Ven is dead. Bellerose has been acting as if she’s some sort of queen! If you lend me your support to help unseat that little wench, I’ll make sure you get the best seats on the Ark. I—”

A wineglass smashed to the ground. “Who in the blazes is she?” cried a frightened man.

For Hiva had just made herself known to them, appearing without fanfare in the threshold of the parlor door.

“What—?” Benini looked at her, mouth agape as if he’d seen a ghost. Then his lips quivered into a nervous smile. “Why, Iris, my dear, how—how have you been? I heard you’d gone missing.”

The men of empire gasped, some whispering in wonder. It did not matter to Hiva which seat they occupied. Their political affiliation was but a veil for the evil of their actions. Like Benini. Self-interest was their creed. Greed was the religion that tied them together. Certainly Hiva had noticed: their bellies were round and full, while the sorrowful procession marching east were gaunt and sick, wailing for home. From such wickedness, bitterness would sprout and more degeneration would take root until it had become a cancer spreading upon the earth.

“Who is this woman?”

Hiva heard shouts like these erupt around the parlor.

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