The Shadow of Elysium by Django Wexler

Author:Django Wexler [Wexler, Django]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fantasy
Amazon: B00OZ0TKLQ
Goodreads: 23476874
Publisher: InterMix
Published: 2015-05-19T00:00:00+00:00

7

I do not know if my plan will work, and there is no way to test it beforehand. If I fail, though, what more can they do to me? Kill me on the spot? After what Hunter has told me, I am inclined to agree with Alex that death would be preferable.

I wait until evening, when the convoy has pulled into its nightly camp beside the road. We are passing through an ancient wood, huge trees larger than anything near Nestevyo blotting out the stars. The road is rocky and dry for once, a narrow track cut through the underbrush barely wide enough for the wagons. Here and there it makes wide semicircles where the builders went around a particularly massive pine instead of going to the trouble of chopping it out of the way.

Torches flare in the failing light as the outriders begin setting up their tents. We have perhaps an hour before they come to take Alex and me on our once-a-day sanitary excursion and then give her another dose of the drug.

The Priest of the Red sits on the box at the front of the wagon. His short companion has slipped off to help erect the camp, but the priest watched the men work with benign indifference. He yawns and raises his hands above his head to stretch.

“Sir,” I say, putting as much urgency as I could into my voice. “Father!”

“Eh?” The priest half turns. “Quiet, you.”

“There’s something wrong with the girl.” I point at Alex with my bound hands. “I don’t think she’s breathing.”

“What?” The priest glares at her, but she lies very still, as she always does when the drug has her in its grasp. “Damnation.”

As I had hoped, he began to climb over the back of the box into the bed of the wagon. There is no one in the convoy more suited to give medical attention than a frocked Priest of the Red, so it made sense that he would attend to it himself. Once he is bent over Alex, the sides of the wagon will hide him from the view of the men outside.

All the same, I feel a sudden thrill of doubt. The priest looks like Hunter, sounds like him—as best I can tell, given the black glass mask and the enveloping robe—but I can’t swear they are the same man.

Still. It’s too late to back out now.

The Priest of the Red drops into the box and kneels beside Alex, looking at her closely. When he touches her cheek, she groans and stirs slightly. The drug is wearing off.

“She’s alive,” he says. “What do you think—”

I reach out, as far as my chained hands will allow, and grab him by the arm. My demon flows out through my fingers, cold and gleeful. There is no time to admire the complexity of his form, no time for anything but a frantic descent into his body. He starts to utter a cry, but I stretch out my will and the muscles of his throat seize up.

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