Cress (The Lunar Chronicles #3) - Marissa Meyer Page 0,80

after the break was torture, but Cress reminded herself that anything was better than walking.

The afternoon brought more rocky lowlands, followed by a few hours of dunes. They passed a snake and Cress found that she was the only one who was afraid of it, despite Kwende confirming that it was poisonous. The snake curled up on itself and watched them pass by with lazy eyes, not even bothering to hiss or bare its fangs like the snakes on the net dramas always did. Still, from her vantage point, Cress carefully monitored where Thorne stepped and her heartbeat didn’t slow until the snake could no longer be seen behind them.

Then, when Cress was sure the insides of her thighs had been rubbed raw, Thorne reached up and fumbled around until his palm landed on her knee.

“Do you hear that?”

She listened, but all she heard was the familiar soft clopping of the camels. “What?”

“Civilization.”

She squeezed the camel’s reins, but it wasn’t until they crested the next dune that the noise separated itself from the dead desert silence, and she saw it.

A city sprouted up in front of them, unfolding in the desert among sheltering rocky cliffs. The buildings were all compacted together, but even from this distance Cress could see the blur of green trees sprouting between them. It did not seem possible—that a city could exist in the middle of such a harsh, unforgiving desert, and yet there it was, without any preamble. One step—desert. The next—paradise.

“You’re right,” Cress breathed, eyes wide. “We’re almost there. We made it.”

“What does it look like?”

“I don’t know where to start. It looks crowded. There are people and buildings and streets and trees.…”

Thorne laughed. “You just described every town on the planet.”

She couldn’t help giggling along with him, suddenly overcome with elation. “I’m sorry. Let me think. Most of the buildings are made out of stone, or maybe clay, and they’re kind of a tan, peachy color, and the whole city is surrounded by a tall stone wall, and there are a lot of palms on all the streets. There’s a lake that looks like it stretches right down the middle of the city, almost from end to end, and I see little boats in it, and so many trees and plants, and I think … to the north, beyond the houses, I think they’re growing crops of some sort. Oh!”

“What? Oh what?”

“Animals! At least a few dozen … goats, maybe? And—that one over there has sheep! They look just like they do on the net!”

“Tell me about the people.”

She tore her focus away from the creatures that were lazing in what shade they could find and tried to pick out the people wandering the streets. Though it was moving into evening, what appeared to be the main road was still teeming with small open-air shops, vibrantly patterned fabric walls fluttering in the breeze. “There’s a lot of them. Mostly dressed in robes like we are, but there’s a lot more color.”

“And how big is the city?”

“Hundreds of buildings!”

Thorne smirked. “Try to temper that enthusiasm, city girl. I told everyone that we met in Los Angeles.”

“Right. Sorry. It’s just … we made it, Captain.”

His hand slipped down her leg, wrapping loosely around her ankle. “I’ll be glad to get off these sand dunes, but there will be a lot more things to trip over here than in the desert. Try not to go too far, all right?”

She stared down at his profile and recognized the strained look of concern in the tilt of his lips, the crease between his eyebrows. She hadn’t seen that look since they’d stumbled across the caravaners, and she’d thought he was growing more comfortable with his blindness. But maybe he’d only been trying to hide his weakness from the others.

“I wouldn’t leave you,” she said.

It was clear from the moment they rolled into town that the caravan was well-known and expected and late. The caravaners wasted no time in setting up a spot amid the shops and unloading their goods, while Cress tried to drink in the architecture and details and beauty that surrounded her. Though the city had appeared bleached and sandy from afar, up close she could pick out vibrant swatches of orange and pink decorating the sides of buildings, and cobalt-blue tiles lining doorways and steps. Almost every surface was bedecked in some decoration, from gold trim to intricately carved archways to an enormous fountain that stood in the middle of the main square. Cress peered