Read Online Reign of Shadows by Sophie Jordan - Free Book Online Page B

rid myself of all thoughts of Bethan and that day.
    After a few moments I succeeded in rerouting my thoughts. They strayed in the most obvious direction. A pair of bottomless dark eyes that saw nothing and yet saw everything floated across my mind. Luna.
    It was almost as though her lack of sight made her stronger. Someone like her should be dead, but she wasn’t. She was thriving. Maybe a world of dark was best suited for the blind. I expelled a heavy breath.
    She’d made me laugh.
    I didn’t know the last time I had laughed. For a moment my chest had loosened. I felt lighter until I remembered that laughter didn’t belong in this world.
    A knock at the door brought me upright. “Yes?”
    The door creaked open. Perla stuck her head in my room, wisps of steel-gray hair floating around her. “It’s the boy.”
    I slipped from the bed, pausing to slide my feet into my boots, knowing nowhere was ever safe—including this idyllic tower. I needed to be ready to run at a moment’s notice.
    I followed Perla into the bedchamber. Madoc whimpered in the middle of the bed, his face flushed and sweaty. Dagne sat onthe edge, wiping his brow with a cloth.
    Sivo stood in the corner, looking bleary-eyed. Luna was beside him, her arms crossed in front of her defensively as though she was trying to shield herself from me.
    â€œWhat’s happening?” I asked.
    Perla nodded to the boy on the bed. “His fever has spiked. I fear it won’t break. We’re losing him.”
    Dagne choked on a sob, burying her face against where his arm rested limply on the bed, her fair hair a pale banner of gold against the bedding.
    I searched Perla’s face, wondering why she was telling me this. If he was dying, there was nothing I could do about it.
    â€œThat’s too bad,” I heard myself saying.
    If they were expecting sympathy, they weren’t going to get it. People died every day. This world was more about dying than living. The goal was that it just not be me lying fever-ridden in a bed—or becoming food for dwellers. Some days even that goal felt insignificant. Fighting for survival had become reflex and not something I even considered anymore.
    â€œYou sound real shaken over that,” Luna’s voice chimed in. My gaze shot to her. For a girl without sight, she pulled off the scathing glare rather well.
    â€œAre you sorry for him then?” I challenged. “You just met him.”
    â€œI am sorry for him, yes. Any loss of life is something to grieve.”
    Dagne lifted her face, her cheeks wet from tears. “Would youstop it? He’s not dead yet. Stop talking about him like he is.”
    â€œI’m sorry.” Luna shook her head, looking truly morose.
    I snorted. Such a soft heart. She cared too much over one boy dying. Didn’t she know yet? People you loved, the ones you cared about the most, they all died eventually. No one was spared. When you lost them, everything you had, all of your heart, was lost, too. It crippled you. Left you an empty shell, functioning on instinct alone.
    â€œYou’re horrible,” she whispered, so softly that I perhaps wasn’t supposed to hear her.
    My mouth kicked up at one corner. “You haven’t any idea what I think or feel. You live in your private sanctum. You don’t know what the world out there is truly like.”
    Even if I wanted to care about someone again, there was nothing left in the shell of me. My heart might beat, but that part of me was gone.
    Luna’s gaze rested in my general direction. “I’ve been out there—”
    â€œHave you ever been a stone’s throw from this tower?” At her silence, I knew she had not. “When things get messy you dive back into your hole, right? You’re fortunate. You haven’t had a taste of what it’s really like.”
    Color splashed her cheeks. “So if I did . . . I’d be as heartless as