Read Online The Hush by Skye Melki-Wegner - Free Book Online Page A

the terror that wrenched at his belly. You show folks you’re weak, and they’ll use it to break you …
    They swerved around a corner. Chester skidded on a few dried corn husks in a mad attempt to avoid crashing into Sam. The larger boy had jerked to a halt, one hand slapped upwards to keep his cowboy hat from flying off his head.
    â€˜What …?’
    And then he saw a man, ten yards ahead.
    Nathaniel Glaucon.
    Chester’s throat closed. For a long moment, he didn’t breathe. He stared down the path at the Songshaper, at the sweep of his olive-green coat, framed by walls of corn stalks. At the chestnut pegasus by his side.
    At the pistol in his hands.
    Sam whipped his own gun from its holster so fast that Chester barely heard the click. There was a blast of gunfire and a bullet smashed into Nathaniel’s chest.
    Chester jumped, shocked by the roar of the gun. His ears rang, warping sound in and out like the chokes of a dying man. Nathaniel jerked back and Chester stared, waiting for the Songshaper to topple.
    He didn’t. Blood poured from his chest, spreading a stain across his olive coat. His breath was ragged, as though the bullet had pierced one of his lungs. But there was no cry of pain and no falling body. Instead, a flittering tune escaped his lips: a hum of notes, pouring Music into the air. A wisp of dark smoke curled up from his chest, as though his humming had scorched a melody into the wound itself …
    Healing , Chester realised. Nathaniel was using a melody to heal himself. Chester knew that a trained Songshaper could be powerful, but he had always pictured wild, brutal blasts of power. He had never realised that such finesse was possible: the skill to stitch your own flesh together with a song …
    Nathaniel fell silent. He stood there, a gun in one hand and reins in the other. His pendant – the silver nautilus shell – glinted at his throat.
    The pegasus, which had let out a terrified whinny at the gunshot, was straining and rearing now, fighting to break away. Its wings flapped and its nostrils snorted, panicked by the roar of the bullet.
    Nathaniel fixed his gaze on it. He hummed a slow, quiet tune under his breath. A tune of control, perhaps, to tranquilise the beast.
    The creature’s wings sucked downwards and vanished into its spine with a slow, crumpled slurp. Its legs stopped straining; its nostrils ceased flaring. The magic fizzled into its veins, its hooves, its bones, its withers. And slowly, inch by inch, the beast calmed. It stood silent and still, just an ordinary chestnut stallion, its mind drugged into a doze.
    Silence.
    Nathaniel raised an eyebrow at Sam, and kept his own pistol trained towards them. ‘Now, now,’ he said. His voice was hoarse, but with every word it sounded stronger. ‘You can’t have expected that to kill me, boy. I am protected by the glory of the Song.’
    Sam scoffed. ‘You ain’t protected by nothing but your own damn spellwork, you filthy –’
    Nathaniel Glaucon cut him off with a laugh. ‘Oh, very good.’ He took a step closer. ‘Very good, boy.’
    He dropped the reins. Behind him, the horse just stood there, silent and numb as stone. Nathaniel’s gaze wandered to Chester now, and he adjusted the angle of his pistol. It pointed directly at Chester’s face.
    Chester froze. He stared down the barrel of the pistol, at the hole where the bullet would emerge. Beside him,he felt Sam’s muscles tense. The silence stretched. No one moved.
    â€˜Now,’ Nathaniel said, ‘this is interesting.’ His eyes flicked back to Sam, but his pistol stayed trained on Chester. ‘For someone who knows so much, you took a great risk coming here. All to save this brat from his rightful execution. Why might that be, I wonder?’
    Sam didn’t respond.
    â€˜I know what you are, boy,’ said Nathaniel Glaucon to Chester. ‘But this is my town and we play by