The Quelling Book Tour & Giveaway

EXCERPT

1

KYJTA

It’s cold down here. Cold and miserable, and I wish I hadn’t come.

But wishes are like curses, as my mother used to say. I should have asked her what she meant. I

thought we’d have time. I was wrong. There’s a girl nearby. She’s not the only one; about a

hundred of us are crammed into this dank, subterranean space, but she’s the one who has my

attention. She’s small and thin. Silently crying. I could probably touch her shoulder if I stretched

out my hand. By now, Helacth’s ghoragalls must be circling. Hideous, winged creatures with

shards of bone protruding from their moulting black feathers, and long limbs perfect for

snatching up anyone left wandering around in the dark. I’m sure she’s scared. She has no

family. None that I can see, anyway. I could put an arm around her and warm her scrawny arms.

I could rub the chill out of her bare legs. She isn’t dressed for the cold stone floor. I lean my

head against the wall and do my best to ignore the painful jut of an old man’s hip bone in my

side. How long until morning? It’s impossible to tell. Some people are sleeping, gently snoring.

The young girl must be tired but has nowhere to put her head. I could offer her my leg, but it’s

not my way.

The walls are hypnotic, not your typical cellar walls. They’ve been strung with zionate; the

ceiling too. The delicate threads overlay each other in a crazed, haphazard pattern that

shimmers in the lamplight. The protective canopy makes us invisible to Helacth’s ghoragalls.

Not us, exactly, but our Stains: glimmering silver-gold markings that brand the lot of us. The

Rheman overlord’s ghoragalls may be merciless abductors who attack us in the dark, but at least

they’re blind. It’s when you’re stained that they can find you. Day or night, inside or outside,

they know where to look. Except where zionate is at work. Something about the shimmering

strands disturbs their sense of our Stains, and we go unnoticed while it shields us.

The young girl is from the north. Skin the colour of polished dark wood, hair bright as the

setting sun. She wears it in a braid that crowns her head. How old is she? Eight or nine

alignments? Maybe. Too young to be on her own. Too young to be here. She turns and catches

me looking. Sniffing, she lowers her long copper lashes and wipes at her eyes. I lost my mother

young, so maybe I don’t have a caregiver’s nature. There are other women here, though, older

than me and experienced, women with children of their own. Why don’t they comfort her?

Isn’t that what mothers do?

The floor is hard and icy cold. I shift uncomfortably, nudging my boot past the town carpenter’s

ample bottom. She treats me to a pointed look, and I smile, but my eyes send a different

message. She looks away. It’s not that I scare her. I’m just a girl, nineteen alignments and a

rawhide sack of bones. But she won’t want to offend me. I might be wearing a field hand’s

clothes, but she knows me as something more than a farm girl. I am my father’s daughter, and

she has no alternative but to hide her scorn if she values his deliveries.

I wish I hadn’t come.

Wishes are like curses. Wishes are like curses.

I should have asked my mother for the meaning. Not knowing bothers me, and the words stick

in my head.