Unus (Stone Mage Saga Book 1) by Raven Whitney

Author:Raven Whitney [Whitney, Raven]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781939359186
Publisher: Raven Whitney LLC
Published: 2016-10-10T23:00:00+00:00

7

The next thing I was aware of was a loud, obnoxious clanging sound. Despite the fierce aching in my ribs and a numb butt, I was surprisingly comfortable. A warming, spicy-sweet scent reminiscent of a pine forest in autumn reached my lungs. I tried to nuzzle into the firm nook that perfectly fit my head to escape that harsh noise.

“Wake up. You've been chosen,” Liam urged with a heavy dread in his voice, shaking me gently. “If you don't walk yourself, they'll drag you out.”

I opened my eyes, almost expecting this whole thing to have been a nightmare. When I saw the drab, dank stone wall opposite me, reality slapped me in the face. A tall, lean man with an angular face and long, brown hair pulled back in a ponytail stood before me. His angry brown eyes stared impatiently down at me.

Liam stood and pulled me gently to my feet. The tall man roughly shoved me out of the open cell door, nearly knocking me to the floor. I barely heard Liam's protest through the growing din of other prisoners shouting raucously.

Looking back at him, I saw the guard slam the cell door in his face, barring him from coming with me. Liam slammed his fist into the bars hard enough that they rang. Nearly vibrating with tension, he began pacing alongside the door like a tiger at the zoo, all the while never taking his burning gray eyes off me.

The guard walked towards me and I reacted subconsciously, being herded by him like a sheep. He moved me down the corridor, past the rows of other cells. In those dark, cramped quarters were mostly normal-looking people, but also monstrous ones. In one cell, there were two men, both paler than death, snarling with vampire fangs and reaching through the bars towards me like rabid, ravening beasts.

In another, there was a single gargantuan, muscular man with thick, rhinoceros-like skin crammed into the tiny cell. He turned his humanoid face to look at me passing by. His solid black eyes stared at me, and I could have sworn I saw a deep and profound sadness there. He gave a soft snort through his tusked mouth and turned back to staring at his hands, folded neatly in his lap as he sat hunched over on a dirty floor cot. A deep, blotchy burn scar covered his entire left shoulder.

More unknown creatures— “Paxians”, Liam called them— passed by as the guard walked me down five flights of stone stairs and into a small holding cell next to the arena, underneath the stone floor around the top of the pit. Another gate of wrought iron was all that separated me from that sand-pit. Icy fear and molten rage filled me when I saw that in an identical holding cell directly across from me, was the same lumbering beast that had tried to eat Lexie yesterday. Fixated, I couldn't take my eyes from its slow, lurching movements as it wandered around its cell, sniffing at the packed dirt flooring and carved stone walls.

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