A Crown as Sharp as Pines by Jennifer Kropf

Author:Jennifer Kropf
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Winter Publishing House

THE TWELFTH

I spun. Fingers and claws pushed me right and left; low growls and high shrieks stung my ears. I tried to grapple onto a solid picture, a solid floor, a solid anything, as lights flashed in my vision. I saw faces. Webs of ice and iron trapped those faces in cold cages where groups huddled together.

My feet slammed a stone floor and the smoke vanished.

I could hear my own loud breathing in my ears. Other noises trickled in; snarls and whimpers. The cages sharpened in my view.

Gnomes rattled the spokes, releasing growling laughs and scratching at the ice with grey fingers. The potent scent of damp soil and rotting hope was familiar, and so were the low cries of the fallen Carriers of Truth that leaked up from the ground, mixed with the horrid, crazed laughter of the witch who would never leave me alone.

I’d been in these dark tunnels before. I’d drank Mara Rouge’s poison in these tunnels. Wren Stallone had died in these tunnels, along with dozens of Carriers before my time.

The Dungeon of Souls was laced with a chalky haze. Through it, I saw throngs of people trapped down here, and I had a sinking feeling as I realized who these people were.

My gut tightened as I looked down the hall where rows upon rows of wiry ice and iron cages held more groups, groans seeping from their cells. Tiny sparkles of light fell from their chests, drifting into the sky like gold paint being washed away in water—something I’d never seen before.

“No…No, don’t give up!” I tried to yell.

A gnome reached through a pair of bars and poked a woman with a long branch of ice. He pinned one of her pant legs as she tried to scramble back.

“Stop it!” I shouted, but the gnome laughed and banged his fist against his red breastplate as though he couldn’t hear me. “Stop!” I shouted again, and this time, it echoed through the pit.

The gnome paused. He looked over his shoulder with the most peculiar face, searching the space where I stood.

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