Текст книги "Scarlet"

Автор книги: Marissa Meyer

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Текущая страница: 4 (всего у книги 22 страниц) [доступный отрывок для чтения: 9 страниц]

But the thought to release her control over them never crossed her mind.

“Come on,” she said, half jumping, half sliding off the ship. She crawled beneath it and found the grate between the landing wheels. Though her hands were shaking, she managed to twist the grate a quarter turn and pull it up.

A shallow pool of standing water glistened up at her in the darkness.

The fall wasn’t far, but her bare feet landing in the oily water made her queasy. Thorne was beside her in a second, replacing the grate over the hole.

There was a round concrete tunnel set into the wall, barely reaching Cinder’s stomach and filled with the stench of garbage and mildew. Wrinkling her nose, Cinder crouched and crawled into it.

Seven

The cluster of icons on Emperor Kai’s netscreen was growing denser by the hour, not only because there were so many things for the new emperor to read and sign, but because he wasn’t putting much effort into reading or signing any of them. With fingers buried in his hair, he gazed blankly at the inset netscreen panel currently elevated out of his desk and watched the icons multiply with a growing sense of dread.

He should have been sleeping, but after countless hours of staring at the shadows above his bed, he’d finally given up and decided to come here instead and attempt to do something productive. He was dying for a distraction. Any distraction.

Anything to chase away the thoughts that kept rotating around in his brain.

So much for those good intentions.

Taking in a measured breath, Kai glanced up at the empty office. It was supposed to be his father’s office, but the room struck Kai as far too extravagant to be a place for work. Three ornate tasseled lanterns were lined up on a red-and-gold ceiling, hand-painted with elegant dragons. A holographic fireplace was set into the wall to his left. A sitting area with carved cypress furniture surrounded a miniature bar in the far corner. Silent videos of Kai’s mother shimmered from picture frames by the door, sometimes paired with flashes of Kai growing up, and sometimes all three of them together.

Nothing had changed since his father’s death, except the room’s owner.

And perhaps the smell. Kai seemed to recall the aroma of his father’s aftershave, but now there was the distinct stench of bleach and chemicals—remnants of the cleaning crew scrubbing the room raw after his father first had contracted letumosis, the plague that had killed hundreds of thousands of people all over Earth in the past decade.

Kai’s attention fell from the pictures and snagged on the small metal foot that sat on the corner of his desk, its joints caked with grease. Like a revolving wheel, his thoughts came full circle yet again.

Linh Cinder.

Stomach tightening, he set down the stylus that he’d been gripping and reached for the foot, but his fingers stalled before they could get to it.

It belonged to her, the pretty young mechanic at the market. The girl who was so easy to talk to. The girl who was so authentic, who didn’t pretend to be something she wasn’t.

Or so he’d thought.

His fingers tightened into a fist and he drew back, wishing he had someone he could talk to.

But his father was gone. And now Dr. Erland was gone too, having resigned from his position, and left without even saying good-bye.

There was Konn Torin, his father’s, and now his, adviser. But Torin, with his ever-present diplomacy and logic, would never understand. Kai wasn’t sure he even understood what it was he felt when he thought of Cinder. Linh Cinder, who had lied to him about everything.

She was cyborg.

He couldn’t dismiss the memory of her lying at the base of the garden steps, a foot disconnected from her leg, a white-hot metal hand having melted away the remnants of a silk glove—gloves that had been his gift to her.

He should have been repulsed by her. Reliving the memory again and again, he tried to be repulsed by the sparking wires and her grime-packed knuckles and the knowledge that she had fake neural receptors taking messages to and from her brain. She was not natural. She was probably a charity case, and he couldn’t help but wonder if her family had paid for the operation or if it had been government funded. He wondered who had taken such pity on her that they’d determined to give her a second life when her human body had been so damaged. He wondered what had caused her body to be that damaged in the first place, or if perhaps she was born disfigured.

He wondered and wondered and knew he should have been more disturbed by each unanswered question.

But he wasn’t. It was not her being cyborg that had curdled his stomach.

Rather, his repugnance had started the moment his vision of her flickered as if she were a broken netscreen. He’d blinked, and she was no longer a helpless, rain-soaked cyborg, but the most intensely beautiful girl he’d ever laid eyes on. She was blindingly, breathtakingly stunning, with flawless tanned skin and shining eyes and an expression so ravishing it threatened to buckle his knees.

Her Lunar glamour had been even more striking than Queen Levana’s, and her beauty was painful.

Kai knew that’s what it had been: Cinder’s glamour, fading in and out even as he stood above her, trying to make sense of what he was seeing.

What he didn’t know was how many times she’d glamoured him before that. How many times she’d tricked him. How many times she’d made him out to be a complete fool.

Or had the girl at the market, muddied and disheveled, been the real girl after all? The girl who had risked her life to come to the ball to give Kai a warning, unsteady cyborg foot and all …

“It doesn’t matter,” he said to his empty office, the disconnected foot.

Whoever Linh Cinder was, she was no longer his concern. Soon Queen Levana would be returning to Luna, and she would take Cinder back as her prisoner. It was the arrangement Kai had agreed to.

At the ball, he had been forced to make a choice, and had refused Levana’s offer of a marriage alliance once and for all. He was determined to never subject his people to life beneath such a heartless empress, and by that point Cinder had been his last bargaining chip. Peace, in exchange for the cyborg. His people’s freedom, in exchange for the Lunar girl who had dared to defy her queen.

It was impossible to know how long such an arrangement would last. Levana still refused to sign the peace treaty that would ally Luna with the Earthen Union. Her desire to be either empress or conqueror would not be sated long by the sacrifice of a mere girl.

And next time, Kai didn’t think he would have anything else to offer.

Crumpling his hair, Kai pulled his attention back to the amendment on the netscreen and read the first sentence three times, waiting for the words to register. He had to think of something else, anything else, before the never-ending questions drove him insane.

A monotone voice interrupted him, making him jump. “Entrance requested for Royal Adviser Konn Torin and Chairman of National Security Huy Deshal.”

Kai glanced at the time. 06:22.

“Entrance granted.”

The office door breezed open. Both men were dressed for the day, though Kai had never seen either of them so disheveled. It was clear they’d gotten up in a hurry, although he suspected from the dark circles beneath Torin’s eyes that he hadn’t gotten much more sleep than Kai had.

Kai stood to greet them, tapping the corner of the netscreen that sent it sinking back into the desktop. “You’re both getting an early start.”

“Your Imperial Majesty,” said Chairman Huy with a deep bow. “I’m glad to find you awake. I’m sorry to inform you of a breach of security that requires your immediate attention.”

Kai froze, his thoughts racing ahead to terrorist attacks, out-of-control protestors … Queen Levana declaring war. “What? What happened?”

“There’s been a jailbreak from New Beijing Prison,” said Huy. “Approximately forty-eight minutes ago.”

Nerves knotting up his shoulders, Kai glanced at Torin. “A jailbreak?”

“Two inmates have escaped.”

Kai pushed his fingertips into the desk. “Don’t we have some sort of protocol in place for this?”

“Generally speaking, yes. However, this is an extraordinary circumstance.”

“How so?”

The lines deepened around Huy’s mouth. “One of the escapees is Linh Cinder, Your Majesty. The Lunar fugitive.”

The world turned over. Kai’s gaze dropped to the cyborg foot, but he snapped it back up. “How?”

“We have a team analyzing the security footage in order to determine her exact method. We understand she was able to glamour a guard and persuade him to move her to a separate wing of the prison. From there, she was able to breach the air duct system.” Suddenly embarrassed, Huy held up two clear bags. One contained a cyborg hand, the other a small, blood-crusted chip. “These were found in her cell.”

Kai’s jaw worked, but he was dumbfounded by the sight. He was simultaneously intrigued and unnerved by the dismembered limb. “Is that her hand? Why would she do that?”

“We’re still working on the details. We do know, however, that she made her way into the prison’s loading dock. We are working to secure all possible escape routes from there.”

Kai paced toward the floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the palace’s west-facing gardens. The whispering grasses still glittered with morning dew.

“Your Majesty,” said Torin, the first he’d spoken, “I would advise you to deploy military reinforcements to track down and recover the fugitives.”

Kai massaged his brow. “Military?”

Torin spoke slowly. “It is in your best interest to do everything in your power to recover her.”

Kai found it difficult to swallow. He knew that Torin was right. Any hesitation would be seen as a sign of weakness, and possibly even suggest that he’d assisted with the escape. Queen Levana would not take kindly to it.

“Who’s the other fugitive?” he asked, stalling for time while he struggled to grasp the implications. Cinder—a Lunar, a cyborg, a fugitive, who he’d all but sentenced to death.

Escaped.

“Carswell Thorne,” said Huy, “an ex-cadet for the American Republic air force. He deserted his post fourteen months ago after stealing a military cargo ship. At this time we don’t consider him dangerous.”

Kai neared his desk again, seeing that the fugitive’s profile had been transferred to the screen. His frown deepened. Perhaps not dangerous, but young and inarguably good-looking. His prison photo showed him flippantly winking at the camera. Kai hated him immediately.

“Your Majesty, we need you to make a decision,” said Torin. “Do you grant permission to send in military reinforcements to secure the fugitives?”

Kai stiffened. “Yes, of course, if that’s what you think the situation requires.”

Huy clicked his heels and marched back toward the door.

Kai wanted to call him back immediately as a thousand questions filled his brain. He wanted the world to slow down and give him time to process this, but the two men had both gone before the hesitant “wait” fell from his mouth.

The door shut, leaving him alone. He stole a single glance at Cinder’s abandoned foot before collapsing over his desk and pressing his forehead onto the cool netscreen.

He couldn’t help but imagine his father sitting at this desk, faced with this situation, and knew he would have been sending comms already, doing everything he could to find the girl and apprehend her, because that’s what would be best for the Commonwealth.

But Kai wasn’t his father. He wasn’t that selfless.

Knowing it was wrong, he couldn’t help but wish that wherever Cinder had gone, they would never find her.

Eight

The Morels were all dead. Their farm had been deserted for seven years, since both parents and a troop of six children had all been carted to the Toulouse plague quarantines during a single October, leaving behind a collection of rotting structures—the farmhouse, the barn, a chicken coop—along with a hundred acres of crops left to fend for themselves. An arched storage building that had once housed tractors and hay bales remained intact, standing solitary in the midst of an overgrown grain field.

An old, dusty pillowcase, dyed black, still flapped off the house’s front porch, warning neighbors to stay away from the diseased house. For many years, it had done its job, until the ruffians who ran the fights had sought it out and claimed it for their own.

The fights were already underway when Scarlet arrived. She sent a hasty comm to the Toulouse police department from her ship, figuring she had at least twenty or thirty minutes before they responded, useless as they were. Just enough time to get the information she needed before Wolf and the rest of society’s outcasts were taken into custody.

Downing a few breaths of chilled night air that did nothing to settle her rapid-fire heartbeat, she marched into the abandoned storage building.

A writhing crowd shouted up at a hastily constructed stage, where one man was beating his opponent in the face, fist flying over and over with sickening steadfastness. Blood started to leak from his opponent’s nose. The crowd roared, egging on the dominating fighter.

Scarlet skirted around the audience, hanging close to the sloping walls. Every surface within reach was covered in vivid graffiti. Straw littered the ground, trampled nearly to dust. Rows of cheap lightbulbs were strung on bright orange cords, and more than a handful of them were flickering and threatening to burn out. The hot air reeked of sweat and bodies and a sweetness from the fields that didn’t belong.

Scarlet hadn’t expected there to be so many people. There were well over two hundred onlookers, and she didn’t recognize any of them. This crowd wasn’t from small-town Rieux—likely many of them had come in from Toulouse. She spotted a number of piercings and tattoos and surgical manipulations. She passed a girl with hair dyed like a zebra’s and a man on a leash being dragged around by a curvy escort-droid. There were even cyborgs in the crowd, the rarity made stranger by the fact that none of them were hiding their cyborgness. They flaunted everything from polished metal arms to black, reflective eyeballs that protruded eerily from their sockets. Scarlet did a double take when she passed a man showing off a small netscreen implanted into his flexed bicep, laughing at the stiff news anchor inside it.

The crowd roared suddenly—guttural and joyful. A man with the tattoo of a spine and rib cage tracking down his back was left standing on the stage. Scarlet couldn’t see his opponent beyond the dense crowd.

She tucked her hands into the pockets of her hooded sweatshirt and continued her search of the unfamiliar faces, the strange fashions. She was drawing attention in her plain jeans with the ripped knees and ratty red sweatshirt that her grandma had given her years ago. Usually the hoodie was like camouflage in a town of equally careless dressers, but now she was dressed like a chameleon in a room full of Komodo dragons. Everywhere she turned, curious gazes followed her. With ruthless defiance, she glared back at them all, and kept searching.

She reached the back wall of the building, still stacked high with plastic and metal crates, without spotting Wolf. She backed herself into a corner for a better viewpoint and tugged the hood forward over her face. Her handgun dug into her hip.

“You came.”

She jumped. Wolf had materialized out of the graffiti and was suddenly beside her, green eyes catching the dusty flickers of the lightbulbs.

“I’m sorry,” he said, shuffling back half a step. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

Scarlet ignored the apology. In the shadows she could just make out the edge of the tattoo on his arm, which had seemed so unimportant hours before but was now burned into her memory.

The one who handed me the poker had a tattoo.…

Heat rushed to her face, the rage she’d buried in return for calm practicality rising to the surface. She closed the distance between them and thumped her locked fist into his sternum, ignoring how he towered a full head above her. Her hatred made her feel like she could crush his skull with her bare hands.

“Where is she?”

Wolf’s expression was blank, his hands limp at his sides. “Who?”

“My grandmother! What have you done with her?”

He blinked, his expression at once confused and speculative, like she was speaking in another language that he was slow to translate. “Your grandmother?”

Gritting her teeth, she slammed her fist harder into his chest. He flinched, but it seemed to be more from surprise than pain. “I know it was you. I know you took her and you’re keeping her somewhere. I know it was you who tortured my dad! I don’t know what you’re trying to prove, but I want her back and I want her back now.”

He shot a furtive glance over her head. “I’m sorry … they’re calling me to the stage.”

Pulse pounding against her temples, Scarlet simultaneously grabbed his left wrist and yanked out her gun. She pressed the barrel against his tattoo.

“My dad saw your tattoo, despite your attempts to keep him drugged up. I find it unlikely that there are two identical tattoos like this, and that you happen to show up in my life the same day my dad’s kidnappers let him go after a week of torturing him.”

His eyes momentarily cleared, but the look was followed by a deep frown, accentuating a pale scar on the side of his mouth. “Someone kidnapped your father … and your grandmother,” he said, slowly. “Someone with a tattoo like mine. But they let your father go today?”

“Do you think I’m an idiot?” she yelled. “Are you really going to try and convince me you had nothing to do with it?”

Wolf peered up toward the stage again and she tightened her grip on his wrist, but he made no move to walk away. “I’ve been at the Rieux Tavern every day for weeks. Any of the waitstaff can vouch for that. And I’ve been here every night. Anyone will tell you so.”

Scarlet scowled. “Sorry if the people around here don’t exactly seem like the trustworthy types.”

“They’re not,” he said. “But they do know me. Watch. You’ll see.”

He tried to slip around her but Scarlet turned with him, her hood slipping back. She dug her nails into his skin. “You’re not leaving until you—” She paused, looking past Wolf at the crowd by the platform.

Everyone was watching them, appreciative looks darting up and down Scarlet’s body.

A man on the platform was leaning against the ropes, smirking. He raised his eyebrows when he saw he’d caught Wolf’s and Scarlet’s attention. “Looks like the wolf has found himself a tender morsel tonight,” he said, his voice magnified by speakers somewhere overhead.

A second man stood on the stage behind him, leering at Scarlet. He was twice the size and a foot taller than the one who had spoken and entirely bald. His hair had been replaced with two rows of bear’s teeth implanted like gaping jaws into his scalp.

“Think I’ll be taking that one home after I’ve destroyed dog-boy’s pretty face!”

The audience laughed at the taunts, making cat calls and whistling to one another. Someone nearby asked Wolf if he was afraid to test his luck.

Unruffled, Wolf turned back to Scarlet. “He’s undefeated,” he said in an explanatory tone. “But so am I.”

Annoyed that he could think for a second she cared, Scarlet sucked in a furious breath. “I already commed the police and they’ll be here any minute. If you just tell me where my grandmother is, you can leave, you can even warn your friends if you want. I won’t shoot you and I won’t tell the police about you. Just—just tell me where she is. Please.”

He peered down at her, calm despite the growing rowdiness of the crowd. They’d started chanting something, the words muffled by the blood flowing through Scarlet’s ears. She thought for a second he was crumbling. He was going to tell her, and she would keep her word long enough to find her grandma and get her away from these monsters who had taken her.

Then she would have his head. Once her grandma was safe at home, she would track him down, and whoever else had helped him, and make them pay for what they’d done.

Perhaps he noticed the darkening bitterness on her face, because he reached for her hand and gently pried up her fingers. On gut instinct she dug the gun into his ribs, though she knew she wasn’t going to shoot. Not without answers.

He didn’t seem worried. Maybe he knew it too.

“I believe your father did see a tattoo like mine.” His head dipped toward her. “But it wasn’t me.”

He pulled away. Scarlet dropped her arm, letting the gun hang limp at her side, and watched the chanting crowd part for him. The onlookers were intimidated, but also amused. Most were smiling and jostling one another. Some were moving through the crowds, scanning wrists, collecting bids.

He may have been undefeated, but it seemed clear that most bets had been placed on his opponent.

She squeezed the gun until the textured metal of the handle left an imprint on her palm.

A tattoo like mine …

What had he meant by that?

He’d only been trying to confuse her, she determined as Wolf launched himself over the stage’s ropes, agile as an acrobat. The coincidence was too much.

No matter. She’d given him a chance, but the police would be here soon and take him into custody. She would get her answers, one way or the other.

Shaking with frustration, she tucked the gun back into her waistband. The thrumming in her temples was beginning to mellow and she could make out the crowd’s chanting now.

Hunter. Hunter. Hunter.

Dizzy from the heat and rush of adrenaline, she glanced toward the building’s enormous opening, where she could see overgrown weeds and wheat stalks lit by the moon. She noticed a woman with close-cropped hair glaring at her like a jealous girlfriend. Scarlet returned the look before shifting her attention to the stage. Lingering at the back of the crowd, she pulled up her hood again, drawing her face beneath its shadows.

The crowd surged forward, carrying Scarlet closer to the fight.

Hunter had ripped off his shirt, displaying a mass of raw muscle as he rattled the crowd. The row of teeth embedded on his head glinted as he bowled from one side of the stage to the other.

Wolf was tall, but he looked like a child next to Hunter. Nevertheless, he was all composure in his corner of the platform, radiating arrogance with one foot up on the ropes, practically lounging.

Hunter ignored him, pacing back and forth like a caged animal. Growling. Cursing. Working the crowd into a frenzy.

The one who handed me the poker …

Scarlet’s gut twisted. She needed Wolf. She needed answers. But in that moment, she wouldn’t have minded seeing him ripped to shreds on that stage.

As if sensing her onslaught of rage, Wolf’s gaze flickered toward her. The smug amusement dropped away.

Scarlet hoped it showed on her face just who she was rooting for.

A holograph flickered to life, hanging over the announcer’s head. The words slowly rotated and flickered.

HUNTER [34] VS. WOLF [11]

“Tonight, our reigning, undefeated champion—Hunter!” cried the announcer. The crowd bellowed. “—takes on undefeated newcomer, Wolf!” Mixed boos and cheers. Evidently not everyone had bet against him.

Scarlet was hardly listening, straining hard at the holograph. Wolf [11]. Eleven wins, she suspected. Eleven fights.

Eleven nights?

Her grandmother had been missing for seventeen days and counting. But her father—hadn’t he said they’d only kept him for a week? She frowned, frustrated from the calculations.

Hunter yelled, “We’re having wolf for dinner tonight!”

Hundreds of hands slapped against the edge of the platform like a roll of thunder.

Wolf’s concentration darkened into something thirsty but patient.

The holograph flashed bright red, then evaporated with the sound of a bellowing horn.

The mediator dropped down into the crowd, and the fight began.

Hunter threw the first punch. Scarlet gasped, the movement almost too quick to follow, but Wolf ducked easily and skirted out from Hunter’s shadow.

Hunter was impressively fast for his bulk, but Wolf was faster. A series of blows were deflected, until Hunter’s fist finally connected with a sickening crunch. Scarlet recoiled.

The crowd erupted, pushing and screaming against her. The frenzy was palpable, the crowd salivating for blood.

Moving as if it were all choreographed, Wolf aimed a solid kick to Hunter’s chest. A loud thud shook the ground as Hunter was knocked onto his back. He was only down for a moment, before jumping to his feet. Wolf inched away, waiting. Blood was dribbling from his lips, but he didn’t seem bothered by it. His eyes glowed.

Hunter attacked with renewed vigor. Wolf took a punch in the stomach and crumpled over with a grunt. It was followed by a blow that sent him careening to the edge of the stage. He stumbled to one knee, but was up on his feet before Hunter could come closer.

He shook his head in an oddly doglike manner, wild hair flying, and then crouched with his big hands poised at his sides, staring at Hunter with that peculiar grin.

Scarlet wrapped her fingers around her sweatshirt’s zipper, wondering if that tick was how Wolf had gotten his nickname.

When Hunter came barreling across the stage again, Wolf lunged to his side and aimed a kick square in Hunter’s back. Hunter collapsed to both knees. The crowd booed. A roundhouse kick, this one at Hunter’s ear, sent him sprawling on his side.

Hunter made to get up, but Wolf aimed for his ribs, sending him back onto the stage. The crowd was in a fervor, screeching and calling foul.

Wolf stepped back, allowing Hunter time to pull himself up by the ropes and settle back into his fighting stance. There was a new glint in Wolf’s eye, like he was enjoying this, and when his tongue darted out to lick the blood from his mouth, Scarlet grimaced.

A raging bull, Hunter charged again. Wolf blocked one punch with his forearm but took another in his side. Then his elbow shot out, catching Hunter in the jaw, and Scarlet knew he’d taken the hit intentionally. Hunter stumbled backward. A heel in the chest nearly knocked him off his feet again. Wolf landed a punch to his nose, and a spurt of blood oozed down Hunter’s chin. A knee in Hunter’s side had him crouching over, groaning.

Scarlet flinched with each blow, her stomach roiling. How people could stand to watch this, to enjoy this, baffled her.

Hunter fell to his knees and Wolf was behind him in a breath, his face violently contorted, his hands on each side of Hunter’s head.

… handed me the poker …

And this man—this monster—had her grandmother.

Scarlet clamped both hands over her mouth, smothering the cry, as her ears waited for the snap of Hunter’s neck.

Wolf froze and blinked at her. His eyes flickered, empty and mad one moment, then almost dazed. Surprised to see her there. His pupils widened.

Revulsion burned through Scarlet’s nerves. She wanted to look away, wanted to run, but she was anchored to the ground.

Then Wolf leaped back, letting Hunter slump to the stage under his own weight.

The horn blared again. The crowd was a mixture of cheers and boos, delight and anger. Outright glee at seeing the great Hunter defeated. None of them minded the blind cruelty, or the fact that they’d almost witnessed a murder.

As the mediator climbed up onto the ropes to announce Wolf as the winner, Wolf peeled his focus away from Scarlet, shoved past the man, and hauled himself over the ropes. The crowd surged away from him, shoving Scarlet backward. She barely kept her balance as she was nearly crushed from the shuffling crowd.

Wolf sprang up, using his hands and feet to propel him forward. Sprinting full speed, he disappeared through the yawning exit and dashed off into the silvery weeds.

Red and blue flashed in the distance.

The crowd swarmed, buzzing with confusion and curiosity. The muttered consensus seemed to be that Wolf was a new hero, but a savage one.

It wasn’t long before someone else noticed the lights and panic swept through them, people at first spouting defiant words against the police, before rushing for the door and scattering across the abandoned farm.

Scarlet was shaking as she pulled her hood up and fled with them. Not everyone was running—someone behind her was trying to call order. There was a gunshot and mad laughter. Up ahead, the girl with the zebra hair was standing on a storage crate, pointing and laughing at the cowards who would flee from the police.

Scarlet escaped into the midnight air and the noise faded without the warehouse’s echo around her. She could hear the sirens now, mixing with the thrum of crickets. On the dirt road outside the building, she spun in a full circle as the crowd jostled around her.

There was no sign of Wolf.

She thought she’d seen him turn right. Her ship was parked to the left. Her pulse was racing, making it hard to breathe.

She couldn’t leave. She hadn’t gotten what she’d come for.

She told herself that she would be able to find him again. When she’d had time to gather her wits. After she talked to the detectives and persuaded them to track Wolf down and arrest him and find out where he’d taken her grandmother.

Tucking her hands into her pockets, she hurried around the building, toward her ship.

A sickening howl stopped her, sucking the air out of her lungs. The night’s chatter silenced, even the loitering city rats pausing to listen.

Scarlet had heard wild wolves before, prowling the countryside in search of easy prey on the farms.

But never had a wolf’s howl sent a chill down her spine like that.