by Megan Lynch
She bit her tongue and choose a swirl on the carpet to focus her eyes on. “Thank you.”
“One more thing.” Clovinger stood and walked to the window with her hands clasped behind her back. “I treated you unfairly. I apologize.” She turned around, and seemed to force herself to look at Samara. “I apologize.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Bristol had planned to dress in his gray tweed suit, but Cindy had something sent over at the last minute. This suit was a lighter material, brown, with a navy checkered shirt. He discarded the tie because he wanted to hold onto this feeling and manifest it physically: freedom.
She hadn’t sent anything for Samara, and because Samara had refused to buy anything for herself, Bristol asked Denver and their mother to take her shopping and buy something for her when she wasn’t looking. She could argue all she wanted, but she saved the whole damn world. The least he could do for her was buy her a dress.
At the reception, people ogled him, grabbed him, and pulled him into interesting conversations he would have felt stuck in before, but now felt at liberty to excuse himself when he noticed they were getting in too deep inside their own heads. Cindy and Albert were rock stars, explaining his work and encouraging opinionated conversation all night. Bristol kept looking at the french doors. The doors, paned in glass, were at the top of a short stairway and opened into a garden so Bristol could pretend he wanted to look at flowers if he needed to. He didn’t want to. Finally, they all arrived together.
Denver, Mom, and Daniel first. Daniel wore an ill-fitting blue blazer, unbuttoned for comfort, and a pressed white shirt. Denver wore a black minidress and bright green heels, and Mom wore a calf-length black dress with neon pink shoes that matched Denver’s. Behind them, Jude came in, wearing one of Bristol’s old shirts—which actually fit him well. When do teenagers find the time to grow up? Finally, Samara walked through the door, dressed in floor-length silver tulle skirt and sleeveless navy top.
He met them halfway up the steps.
“How’s everything going?” asked Denver.
“Very well. The champagne’s nice and cold.”
“Champagne?” asked Jude. “As if this wasn’t already the best day of my life.”
“Let’s go to the bar.” Denver locked arms with Daniel and Jude. “I think we’ve earned it.”
They glided away, and Bristol took Samara’s hand. “Let’s go into the garden.”
Samara laughed. “I just got here. And everyone’s looking at us.”
“That’s why I want to leave.”
She shrugged and smiled. “It’s your night.”
They walked out and stopped in front of a little rosebush encircled with white stones. He held her close to him and didn’t let go.
“What?” she asked.
“Hmm?”
“I get the sense that you want to say something, but aren’t saying it.”
He blushed. “It’s nothing I want to say. I was just thinking of something.”
“Of what?”
“Just a little song that plays in my head every time you’re close by. But I’m not much of a singer.”
Samara smirked and leaned closer. “You have a few other gifts,” she said, her lips softly brushing his.
He brought his cheek to hers.
“Life's storms may rudely blow,
Laying hope and pleasure low:
I'd ne'er deceive thee;
I can never, never leave thee.”
THE END
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SNEAK PEEK OF MUD
A STAIR CREAKS.
With the rain pounding down on the temple’s rattling roof, the human may not have even heard the sound. But I do. It is too close, just outside the door of my tower. I look up from the Texts and listen.
There it is again.
A cold darkness tosses in my stomach.
Another stair creaks, and I know I’m about to kill again. The boiling thrill for blood rises within me and I know better than to bother suppressing it. It will happen anyway, no matter how much I try to bury the monster I really am.
Over the centuries, I’ve at least learned how to make it quick. My hand has already dug the box from the breast pocket of my cloak. I stride across my small room, my bare feet collecting dust. My back to the door, I lean on the mantle to lure the Hunter in. Then, I stare at the blank dusty wall and wait. The rustle of his cloak breaks the quiet with each step.
I want this over.
I hold the box high in my hand for him to see, as if I am inspecting it. So small, so delicate. It nestles easily against my palm, comfortable and sure. It knows I must serve it.
Padded steps lift from the wood and onto the worn rug. My spine prickles with anticipation. Dread, heavy and thick like a storm cloud, wells up inside me. Have they learned nothing from their many losses? So many I cannot count them anymore.
I lay the box on the mantle for him to reach. My fingers itch for the fight, but I will not destroy the human of my own will. He must bring it on himself. I step away from it, leave it there for the Hunter to set his fate.
A rustle of rushed steps, a grunt, and a blade slices through my back, cool and slick. They keep trying to hurt me as if I were human, as if I felt the pain as they do. I reach around and remove the blade from my back. The skin knits itself back together.
I turn to him. Rain beats at the window. Wild dilated eyes peer up at me from under a deep red hood. Young. The cloak slips at his neck, too large for his growing body. It is the same deep red cloak all the others wore. Rich, dark, velvety, with the same gold braided trim. My own cloak, worn and ripped, seems even worse next to it.
The boy is trembling inside it. Waiting.
Has he even experienced a true fight before? Why did they send someone so young? Guilt twists through me.
“It’s not too late. Leave.” My voice is rough with disuse.
I shift the knife in my hand, holding it away to show him I don’t mean him any harm, not if I can help it.
Like their cloaks, the Hunters’ blades are fine, an elaborate pattern carved into its handle. It seems out of place in my hand, even after so many times. I run my fingers over its familiar ridges and wait. My ears are hot with anticipation, with dread of what I know comes next.
He gapes up at me, my monstrosity. I fight the urge to drop my gaze to the ground and instead keep my eyes locked on his. I try to will him to turn away, to go back to wherever he came from.
But I already know he won’t. They never do.
Instead, he gives himself a quick shake and recovers his warrior’s front. “The Sworn will not rest until it is destroyed. Give me the box.”
Courage glows in his eyes. Strong. Fresh. What a waste of a life.
The Sworn? What is the Sworn?
“I cannot.”
If only I could. It would save both of us.
He reaches for the box on the mantle.
“Don’t—”
His fingers wrap around it.
The box’s force takes over and my arms reach for him. I wince as my hand slips the Hunter’s own blade through his soft middle. In the back of my mind, years and years of all the others who came before him flash through my memory. My hands buzz with mad hunger for the fight.
But it’s already over.
He gasps, clasps his hands to his open belly, trying to hold it in. Then he slumps to the floor, spilling his life across the wooden panels. He opens his mouth to gasp, but it comes out as more of a gurgle, blood rising in his throat.
Not much time left. I try to push down the throbbing anger, the monster in me that hungers for the fight. I kneel beside him, gripping his head urgently so he is looking at me.
I hold the box to his face. “What is in it? Why do you come for it? Who are the Sworn?”
A red line dribbles down h
is chin. He looks up at me, trembling, shakes his head side to side.
“You don’t know?”
His words come out in a hoarse whisper. He is shaking all over now in a struggle for his life. He opens his mouth again, tries to push out more. But the dark puddle grows fast below him, and it is over before it begins. Again, I am alone in the heavy dark of the temple tower.
****
The Hunter’s eyes are cold and dead and open wide.
Watching, judging, condemning.
And they should. They have seen what I am.
I used to tell myself I would get used to it. I got used to snapping bones, last cries, pools of blood. But the eyes. The eyes freeze in an echo of their final panic and pain. When they realize these are their last breaths. Paled. Filmed. Hollow.
The Hunter’s eyes stare up at me and I can’t bear it.
I step out onto the balcony to escape them. Try to clear my head, still buzzing and grainy from the kill. Rain squeezes out of the sky like teardrops over the cobblestone streets in the marketplace below, over the thin rotted roofs of the laborers’ quarters beyond it, over the wall that traps them within the city’s borders. Even over the city center, where Epoh’s elite rest, safe and dry. It pounds down on me, drop, by drop, by drop.
So close, yet again.
I set the box next to me on the railing, finger the curves of the delicate patterns painted over it. Such beauty. But it’s what’s inside that the Hunters come for, die for. That much I know. If only it would open. If only I knew what my body betrayed me for, why my hands are covered in blood yet again.
They will send another. They always do. I will be waiting. It goes without end, back further than I can remember. Centuries. Years trudge by, bodies pile up, the weight grows heavier.
I cling to my new clue. The Sworn. The phrase is meaningless to me, but it’s a little more than I had before. Next time, maybe I can learn even more, if they keep sending their young and untested.
Already the dark sky is lightening toward a troubled gray. Another weary day is here in the city of Epoh.
Which means I’ll be stuck with the Hunter’s cold stare all day. There’s no time to move the body now. Soon Epoh’s Silencers will be out, the city’s guards who keep the order with fear and clubs. Ever since they burned down the Holy District and all the Texts so many years ago, anything related to the Three Gods makes them jump. Any sign of movement from a temple like this would trigger a full search of the grounds. Then where would I go? There’s nothing else left beyond Epoh’s walls. Nowhere else to go.
It wasn’t always like this. The realm was happy once. There were tons of other cities like Epoh, and they were thriving. But something shifted in the Second Realm War.
Some say the Three saw the destruction and anger and hate that spread throughout the realm of Terath in the Second Realm War and abandoned it. Others say the Three themselves were on the battlefield, and They came with Their soldiers to beat at Epoh’s wall, begging to be let in and shown a little of kindness—care for wounds, a drink of water—but the people would not let them in for fear of the rebels, and They gave up on us. Others say the Gods simply saw how few men dared fight for Them and turned away.
Whatever it was, the Gods are gone, and the people won’t dare invoke Them for anything, afraid of Their wrath. The realm is in ruins. Only the Gods know what lies beyond Epoh’s high walls. If They care enough to look.
That’s why I hide here, in the temple. I keep to where the humans don’t dare wander. The Gods don’t worry me. They forgot this realm long ago.
I force myself back inside and quickly step toward the body. I drag my fingers over the grayed lids, closing them. I untie his cloak and pull it from under him to mop up the congealing blood from the floor. With his eyes off of me, my entire body finally begins to relax again.
It must be such great relief, knowing you can end. I envy them that, the humans. But not like this. Not before your time. Not alone, with no chance.
When I’m done with the floor, I lay the cloak over the body. His legs jut out at the end, the hand still pushing against the sliced organs. A grotesque empty shell.
The eyes still haunt me through the cloth. But there’s no time to do anything more.
I pick up the Texts from the mantle and move quickly past the body to the window, trying to push the Hunter out of my thoughts. Below my feet the ornate rug, once rich and brilliant, is worn so deep I can feel the wood’s grain under my toes. Decades of standing in the same place day after day after day. Here, I am in the shadows. A human peering in from the streets would not see me. But I can see out.
I watch them. Completely alone, silent, still, there is nothing else to do.
My temple tower rears up against what’s left of the holy district, tall and tired, leering over the market. I watch each day play out on its wide streets and small carts. Behind it, the expired grandeur of the aged towers rises, a rotted reminder of a lost past.
There was a time when Epoh was Terath’s shining jewel. Its streets bustled with life at all hours. But the Second Realm War changed everything. The First Creatures tore through the realm like it was paper, their battles destroying men’s cities, homes, the land itself. And the men, they took part. Some stood up and fought for their Gods. But others turned away from them in anger. Others’ loyalty was easily bought with magic, jewels, or promises of safety after it all ended. Still others ran, cowered, and just waited for it to end.
I’d never, in all my years, seen such destruction.
This is when Zevach arrived at Epoh, with his flock trailing behind him, desperate to believe his promises of protection and hope. Then Zevach told his followers if they wanted the city, they must take it for themselves. Desperate and scared, they fought their way in and destroyed most of its people.
They should have known then what he would become, that this is the city’s fate. I should have.
The sky turns from pitch black to a troubled gray. The rays of light touch over the battered city. Silencers’ boots tap against the pavement. Another weary day in Epoh is here.
Don’t stop now. Keep reading with your copy of MUD by City Owl Author, E. J. Wenstrom, available now.
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About the Author
MEGAN LYNCH lives in Nashville, Tennessee with her husband and her sons, Finnegan and Clark. Her debut dystopian novel, Unregistered, depicts the underside of a utopian society when some members live on the fringe and don’t fit in. In addition to writing, she loves reading, running, yoga, music, and human rights.
meganlynchbooks.com
About the Publisher
City Owl Press is a cutting edge indie publishing company, bringing the world of romance and speculative fiction to discerning readers.
www.cityowlpress.com
Additional Titles
UNREGISTERED
By: Megan Lynch
Living the ideal life is a human right, unless you’re unregistered.
UNAFRAID
By: Megan Lynch
When Freedom Has a Price, Who Will Stand Unafraid?
UNDONE
By: Megan Lynch
When Their Home is in Danger, Will The Plan be Undone?
DIVIDED
By: Sharon M. Johnston
A new heart should mean new life, instead it’s a living nightmare.
SHATTERED
By: Sharon M. Johnston
Healing a battered heart will risk her last link to humanity.
FUTURE THAT NEVER WAS
By: Kin S. Law
A steampunk romp featuring an unorthodox, multi-cultural pirate Captain!
SPECTRE OF WAR
By: Kin S. Law
A third Victoria has ascended the throne of a steam-driven country where enormous clockwork giants walk.
OF STATIONS INFERNAL
By: Kin S. Law
In the wilds of America, Vanessa Hargreaves finds herself up to her corset in trouble.
MIXED IN
By: Catherine Haustein
When passions are regulated, which laws will you break?
MUD
By: E. J. Wenstrom
Torn apart by war and abandoned by the gods, only one hope remains to save humanity. But the savior isn’t human at all.
Royal Palm Literary Award for Book of the Year and First Place for Fantasy.
RAIN
By: E. J. Wenstrom
After Nia’s father dies from a mysterious illness, she grows in isolation amidst the fear and suspicion from her village.
Prequel novella of Chronicles of the Third Realm War.
TIDES
By: E. J. Wenstrom
Rona didn't ask to be brought back from the Underworld, and now that she is alive again, she’s angry enough to raise hell.
PURGATORY’S ANGEL
By: B. Hughes-Millman
We all have a dark side where inner demons roam. When devils of our nightmares murder in their sleep, only she can stop them.