Read Online Summer Ruins by Trisha Leigh - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Trisha Leigh
Tags: Young Adult
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you take these stupid gloves off?” Lucas growls.
“And have the three of you travel away? I’m not an idiot, in spite of what you tell yourself to sleep at night, son of Water.” Zakej waits for a response, but when he doesn’t get one, he continues anyway. “We’ll remove them when we secure you at the Harvest Site, not before.”
The Goblert shuffles into the room, obedient but apparently not fast enough for Zakej, who smacks him on the back of his bald head. “Took you long enough.”
“Squat down,” Deshi orders us, his voice devoid of emotion.
We do as he asks, the three of us crouching in front of the Goblert. Zakej and Deshi stand behind us, the heat of their bodies and the smell of their breath making me nauseated. The twisted creature unfurls all eight fingers at eye level, and glittering black dust piles in each palm. The instant before I close my eyes, preparing for the inevitable but mysterious traveling, I meet the Goblert’s gaze.
It says, Have hope .
Chapter 10.
The experience of traveling with Dax’s magic dust doesn’t differ terribly from being yanked into a new season by a Spritan. One minute we’re in the Underground Core in a lit room. The next, total blackness. It presses against my skin as though the darkness has weight, flattening me into one of the Morgans’ cranberry pancakes.
I’m alone. Disappearing. Nonexistent.
I’m crying when life reappears around me, sure I’ve been erased from the world for good this time. Slowly, everything comes back into focus.
The Goblert dropped me on my hands and knees. A rug, ornate and braided with reds and blacks, swims into view. The room is warm, perhaps overly so. Dizziness recedes, and when I turn my head to the right and see Pax, my stomach unclenches and the fear leaves me. He and Lucas still flank me as they did in the Underground Core, but the trip knocked us all to the ground.
Both Zakej and Deshi appear unaffected, standing on either side of a polished cherry wood table and murmuring in quiet tones. Zakej pours an amber liquid into a cut-glass tumbler, offering the first to Deshi before pouring a second one for himself.
Sound returns, along with balance, and I sit back on my rear. Beside me, Lucas and Pax do the same.
Zakej throws the drink into the back of his throat, then motions with a single finger to the Goblert, who is still behind us. While the little half-breed slides the power-trapping gloves off our hands, Deshi steps behind him and snaps the Spritan bracelets off our wrists. When he drops them in Zakej’s hand, it’s pretty clear that he didn’t save our lives back there so he could secretly join us.
“Where are we?” I ask, mostly to distract myself from screaming at Deshi.
“At the Harvest Site. These are the Prime family’s personal quarters. I don’t expect you’ll be spending much, if any, time here.” Zakej takes a smaller sip of a second drink.
I notice that for his part, Deshi looks quite comfortable.
“Oh, yeah? So where are our quarters ?” Pax drawls, sounding as nonchalant as ever.
“Probably in the same cage they kept me in the last time. And then they’ll expect us to help them when the Elements are dead and they need to stabilize another planet,” Lucas spits.
“I hope there are cleansing rooms.” I say it absently, and honestly, this entire situation feels like it’s happening to someone else. It might be residue from the traveling, but it’s almost like I’m hovering above the room and watching the conversation.
That said, I would not object to a shower and a toilet.
Pax and Lucas shoot me glances that are both concerned and incredulous. I shrug. “What? We reek.”
This makes Deshi’s lips turn up in the smallest of smiles, gone like the beating of wings against the wind. Zakej rolls his eyes, but I can see that Lucas’s statement made him think.
“He’s right, you know. You can keep us alive and drag us across the universe on your spaceship or
“And have the three of you travel away? I’m not an idiot, in spite of what you tell yourself to sleep at night, son of Water.” Zakej waits for a response, but when he doesn’t get one, he continues anyway. “We’ll remove them when we secure you at the Harvest Site, not before.”
The Goblert shuffles into the room, obedient but apparently not fast enough for Zakej, who smacks him on the back of his bald head. “Took you long enough.”
“Squat down,” Deshi orders us, his voice devoid of emotion.
We do as he asks, the three of us crouching in front of the Goblert. Zakej and Deshi stand behind us, the heat of their bodies and the smell of their breath making me nauseated. The twisted creature unfurls all eight fingers at eye level, and glittering black dust piles in each palm. The instant before I close my eyes, preparing for the inevitable but mysterious traveling, I meet the Goblert’s gaze.
It says, Have hope .
Chapter 10.
The experience of traveling with Dax’s magic dust doesn’t differ terribly from being yanked into a new season by a Spritan. One minute we’re in the Underground Core in a lit room. The next, total blackness. It presses against my skin as though the darkness has weight, flattening me into one of the Morgans’ cranberry pancakes.
I’m alone. Disappearing. Nonexistent.
I’m crying when life reappears around me, sure I’ve been erased from the world for good this time. Slowly, everything comes back into focus.
The Goblert dropped me on my hands and knees. A rug, ornate and braided with reds and blacks, swims into view. The room is warm, perhaps overly so. Dizziness recedes, and when I turn my head to the right and see Pax, my stomach unclenches and the fear leaves me. He and Lucas still flank me as they did in the Underground Core, but the trip knocked us all to the ground.
Both Zakej and Deshi appear unaffected, standing on either side of a polished cherry wood table and murmuring in quiet tones. Zakej pours an amber liquid into a cut-glass tumbler, offering the first to Deshi before pouring a second one for himself.
Sound returns, along with balance, and I sit back on my rear. Beside me, Lucas and Pax do the same.
Zakej throws the drink into the back of his throat, then motions with a single finger to the Goblert, who is still behind us. While the little half-breed slides the power-trapping gloves off our hands, Deshi steps behind him and snaps the Spritan bracelets off our wrists. When he drops them in Zakej’s hand, it’s pretty clear that he didn’t save our lives back there so he could secretly join us.
“Where are we?” I ask, mostly to distract myself from screaming at Deshi.
“At the Harvest Site. These are the Prime family’s personal quarters. I don’t expect you’ll be spending much, if any, time here.” Zakej takes a smaller sip of a second drink.
I notice that for his part, Deshi looks quite comfortable.
“Oh, yeah? So where are our quarters ?” Pax drawls, sounding as nonchalant as ever.
“Probably in the same cage they kept me in the last time. And then they’ll expect us to help them when the Elements are dead and they need to stabilize another planet,” Lucas spits.
“I hope there are cleansing rooms.” I say it absently, and honestly, this entire situation feels like it’s happening to someone else. It might be residue from the traveling, but it’s almost like I’m hovering above the room and watching the conversation.
That said, I would not object to a shower and a toilet.
Pax and Lucas shoot me glances that are both concerned and incredulous. I shrug. “What? We reek.”
This makes Deshi’s lips turn up in the smallest of smiles, gone like the beating of wings against the wind. Zakej rolls his eyes, but I can see that Lucas’s statement made him think.
“He’s right, you know. You can keep us alive and drag us across the universe on your spaceship or
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