Every Sky a Grave: A Novel by Jay Posey

Author:Jay Posey
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 2020-07-06T23:00:00+00:00

TWELVE

Elyth stepped off the shuttle onto the boarding platform and immediately wanted to turn back around. A tsunami of motion and sound cascaded over her. Her time in the wild had finely tuned her senses to her surroundings; here in the city it was like her eyes, ears, and nose had all been wrapped in a coil of live wires, a lightning storm of sensation assaulting her from all sides and angles. The sheer mass of humanity seemed like more than should have been allowed on any one planet. Elyth had to consciously remind herself that the cacophony was actually normal. She was the one out of step.

She forced herself forward, navigating the throng awkwardly, partially due to her large backpack but more because no one around her seemed to make any effort whatsoever to afford her any space. After about fifteen minutes of swimming through the crowd, Elyth found her way to a local transit desk, where an exceptionally rude attendant sold her an overpriced pass and seemed angry about the exchange.

The packed public shuttle took her farther into the city center. Elyth stood near the rear entrance and watched out the window, getting a sketch of the architecture and density of the place. Though the design and materials were of an older style, the Academy’s influence was conspicuous. There was a certain elegance to the layout and balance of the structures constructed along the wide river that bisected the city. The buildings mostly shared a slender helix design, many spiraling several hundred feet into the sky. Ground-level thoroughfares and open spaces too appeared to follow an aesthetic reminiscent of the Academy, giving the city an open, welcoming, almost laid-back feeling. A place where lingering was invited, with more than enough time in the day for everything that needed to be done.

Near the center of the city, Elyth got off the shuttle and found a midgrade hotel, spiraled like its neighbors but the shortest among them by far. It was no more than five hundred feet tall, but its ingenious exterior was blue at its foundation and grew gradually paler the higher it rose; standing at its base, the effect created the impression that the structure was a beam of light, extending heavenward to infinity.

She booked a corner room, one level above a lovely terrace it overlooked. The two windows gave her a wide view of the city and, with the terrace just one floor below, an alternate escape route should one prove necessary. The room was spacious and well equipped, and felt open even with the generous bed taking up so much room.

It took an act of pure will for Elyth not to crash immediately on the bed. Instead, she forced herself back out to wander a few blocks of the city, to start developing a sense of its pace and energy, and to evaluate her security. After having hounds at her heels for days, she found it disconcerting to have so many people behind her no matter where she went.

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