Page 54 of The Cruel Dawn
Lively! The candlemaker’s daughter from Maford.
With just a thought, I Spryte to the barren and brown ?elds behind Farmer Gery’s barn in Maford. The land here has been crisped by the now-setting daystar.
In the beginning, Supreme had created this field, and every field across Vallendor, filled with thick-bladed grasses, plants, and flowers that ranged in shade from the whitest whites to the deepest blues. Back then, fruits, flowers, and trees held so much sweet sap that beehives were soon weighed down with honey. “Verdant realm” was more than just my title.
And now, this field—and almost every field across Vallendor—grows with rot and disease, and death and decay. Neither mortals nor animals can hide or slip through unnoticed in these grasses because every step snaps branches and blades. Every step makes leaves crackle and the hard dirt puff and wheeze underfoot.
Twenty paces away, I spot them: Jamart, the candlemaker, the one who’d been the kindest to me but had stopped believing in me after Maford burned to the ground, and Lively, who’d been jailed because of her belief in the Lady of the Verdant Realm instead of Emperor Wake as Supreme Manifest. I’d freed her from Maford’s slimy jail.
Now, bloody and bruised, Jamart and Lively hover in the air, their toes not even touching the ground, their hands tied in front of them. Jamart’s lantern jaw looks like it’s been dislocated, hit so many times that the bones in his face have shifted. His daughter’s eyes…bloody sockets where those eyes used to be.
Shit!
I run toward them. And I run…and run…but I can’t catch up.
Something—or someone—keeps pulling them back and away from me.
There!
One thought and I’ve Spryted, and now I’m standing in front of them.
“I can’t see you, Lady,” Lively says, “but I feel your presence. You heard our prayers, Lady.” She grins, delirious with relief.
Jamart dips his head and murmurs through his twisted mouth, “Please forgive me, Lady.”
“Yes, of course.” I reach for the knot around the candlemaker’s wrists. No matter how quickly and forcefully I pull at it, though, the bond won’t loosen. “Who tied you up like this?”
Both shake their heads and shrug their shoulders. But then Jamart’s eyes widen.
I look back over my shoulder.
Creatures with the legs and trunks of hares and the heads, eyes, and wings of owls hop around a nearby log.
I whisper, “What the…?”
More of these creatures soar and circle the treetops and land on the highest branches. They stare at me with large, owl-like eyes, and they cock their heads just like I’m doing.
Some weird shit.
I turn back to work on the knot—
But Jamart and Lively have moved away from me again.
I run toward them and…run and run…and I’m forced to slow down until I’m not even walking.
A gray cloud forms in front of me. It’s too high to wrap my arms around but low enough for me to lift my hand and scrape my fingers along its bottom.Cold.The cloud grows taller and wider, until it hides the dark sky.
“You’re answering prayers again?” the cloud asks.
I pull the dagger from my ankle sheath as that gray cloud surrounds me. I can barely see the blade in my clammy hand through the mist.
The cloud thins some, and a man towers behind the candlemaker and his daughter. He, too, must hover—his feet aren’t allowed to touch Vallendor’s soil as long as I’m alive. He places one hand on Jamart’s head and his other hand on Lively’s.
I squint at him—but it’s not his remark that confuses me. “I’m dreaming,” I say aloud. “This…this isn’t real.”
“Oh, but this isveryreal, Lady,” Danar Rrivae says. He wears his long gray hair tied in a crimson ribbon and a sleeveless black tunic that hides the countless spheres and vines that symbolize the realms he’s infected—or successfully stolen. His bare skin is a mix of pale white and sickly violet. His green eyes are as soft as the fog swallowing us.
I glare at those markings swirling beneath his tunic and across his arms. Danar Rrivae is Dindt—an explorer and seeker. He isn’t Mera. He also wears the crimson ribbons of Raqiel guards, who are descended from the Onama and Mera—again, Danar Rrivae is neither. Not only has he stolen realms, but he’s also stolen traditions, stolen valor.
