Chapters (49)
- COVER
- DEDICATION
- MAP
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- THIRTY-NINE
- FORTY
- FORTY-ONE
- FORTY-TWO
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- DISCOVER MORE
- ABOUT THE AUTHOR
- PRAISE FOR
Maris was slumped near the entrance to the tunnel, firearm gripped tightly in her hands, her eyes wide. Helena hovered over her. Tremor sat a couple yards away, clutching her elbow. Shadows jumped wildly across their faces. Serina slowly turned. Near the dead dregs of the cook fire, Hector lay on the hard ground, staring up at the rock above his head. His mouth opened and closed without a sound. From beneath him, a rusty stain spread across the stone.
She stepped carefully up to him. The torch threw sickly orange light across his sunken cheeks. He blinked at her, silently, as his life bled out at her feet.
“We’re going to escape, Hector,” Serina promised, her heart still pounding heavily in her throat. “But you never will. Mount Ruin will never let you go.”
TWELVE
NOMI
OVER THE NEXT couple of days, Nomi and Malachi found a kind of rhythm. They took turns at the tiller, and Malachi kept up his lessons on how to sail, until Nomi no longer got so frustrated and was reasonably confident she knew when it was time to tighten a rope or change course to better find the wind.
They slept in short intervals through the days and nights, covered their faces and ears when the other needed to relieve themselves over the side, and spoke, haltingly, of their plans to connect with Malachi’s friend Dante. Nomi thought of Renzo often and hoped they weren’t already too late.
They didn’t talk about Asa, but Nomi saw him frequently in her dreams.
Not dreams. Nightmares.
Nomi thought often of Serina as well.
Had the prison boat arrived on Mount Ruin yet? Was her sister even now on her way to safety in Azura? Nomi’s thoughts spun from Renzo to Serina, from fear to doubt to hope.
On the morning of their third day at sea, Nomi woke to find, in the distance, a fleet of large flat-bottom boats roped together and anchored. She stared in disbelief as the floating village slowly grew before them. Mazes of rigging ran between the vessels. Tiny as ants from this distance, men ran along the ropes.
Nomi had heard of these communities, families who lived just offshore in their boats, some of them strapped together to create whole floating cities, but she’d never imagined she’d see one.
“We’ll give them a wide berth,” Malachi said, adjusting the sail to take them farther out to sea. “The fewer people see us, the better.”
He’d gained strength steadily in the last couple of days. Nomi didn’t find herself checking his pallor anymore; then again, they’d both browned up in the sun.
Nomi leaned on the tiller. The movement didn’t feel natural, exactly, but she no longer feared the boat would capsize at any moment.
They were nearly beyond the floating city when a shouted “Ahoy!” startled them both.