The Kiss of Deception (The Remnant Chronicles #1) - Mary E. Pearson Page 0,141

between the jutting rocky hills that we passed through, a thing rose on the horizon in a hazy gray mist. I couldn’t quite call it a city. It breathed.

As we drew near, it grew and spread like an eyeless black monster rising from smoking ashes. Its haphazard turrets, scaled reptilian stone, and layers of convoluted walls spoke of something labyrinthine and twisted lurking behind them. This wasn’t just any faraway city. I felt the tremor of its pulse, the keen of its dark song. I saw Venda herself sitting high on the gray walls before me, a broken apparition singing a warning to those who listened from below.

I sensed myself slipping away already, forgetting what used to matter to me. It was a lifetime ago I left Civica with what I had thought was a simple dream, for someone to love me for who I really was. During those few short days with Rafe, I naïvely thought I had the dream in my grasp. I wasn’t that girl with a dream anymore. Now, like Walther, I only had a mounting cold desire for justice.

I looked ahead at the growing monster. Like the day I had prepared for my wedding, I knew I faced the last of the steps that would keep here from there. There would be no going back. Once I crossed into Venda, I would never see home again. I want to pull you close and never let you go. I was beyond the farthest corner now. Beyond ever seeing Rafe again. Soon I’d be dead to everyone except the mysterious Komizar who was able to exact obedience from a brutal army. Like Walther’s sword and boots, I was his prize of war now, unless he decided to finish the job that Kaden had shirked. But maybe before that happened, he’d discover I wasn’t quite the prize anyone expected me to be.

The caravan stopped at the river. It was more than a great river. It was a roiling abyss, roaring and sending up the mist I saw from afar. Dampness slicked soil and stone. How we would ever navigate across it, I didn’t know, but then the mass of bodies on the other side hailed our approach. They squirmed past black-streaked walls and began pulling on ropes attached to iron wheels of colossal proportions. Even over the roar of the river, I heard the shouts of a taskmaster synchronizing their pulls. Countless bodies moved together and chanted in a low rumble, and slowly, with each heave, a bridge rose up from the mist, dripping with an unholy welcome. Their last effort hurled the bridge into place with an ominous clanging boom.

Kaden swung down from his horse to stand next to me, watching as workers hurried to secure the bridge chains. “Just do as I say, and everything will be all right. Are you ready?” he asked.

How could I ever be ready for this? I didn’t answer him.

He turned, taking hold of both of my arms. “Lia, remember, I’m only trying to save your life.”

I returned his gaze without blinking. “If this is saving my life, Kaden, I wish you would stop trying so hard.”

I saw the pain in his face. The thousands of miles we had traveled had changed me, but not in the way he had hoped. His grip remained secure, his eyes scrutinizing my face, his gaze pausing on my lips. He reached up and touched them, his thumb sliding gently along the ridge of my lower lip like he was trying to wipe the words from my mouth. He swallowed. “If I had let you go, they’d have sent someone else. Someone who would have finished the job.”

“And you would have betrayed Venda. But you already did that, didn’t you? When you helped me bury the dead.”

“I would never betray Venda.”

“Sometimes we’re all pushed to do things we thought we could never do.”

His hands took hold of mine and squeezed them. “I’ll make a life for you here, Lia. I promise.”

“Here? Like the life you have, Kaden?”

The turmoil that always simmered behind his eyes doubled. Some truths whispered again and again, refusing to be ignored.

The sentinel gave the signal for the convoy to continue. “Ride with me?” Kaden asked. I shook my head, and his hands loosened on mine, slowly letting me go. He climbed back onto his horse. I walked ahead of him, feeling his eyes on my back. I was just about to step onto the bridge when a clamor rose behind us