Mahzar sat cross-legged on the sandy floor and gripped his staff to still his trembling hands. Suluboya’s painted face stared at him from the corner of the tent as if waiting for him to renounce his promotion. “This is the will of the tribe,” he said to the idol. “I did not choose this. Nor did I choose Devrim’s actions.”
Sand swirled like a plague of locusts across the plain, spitting against Travis’s goggles. A line of fenceposts and an abandoned bunker contentedly slept while the world died around them.
“Home,” Asher’s escort said, handing him a set of keys. He splayed the keys out in his palm. Which one? But his escort had already returned to the car and started the engine. Asher tested several keys in the lock before one turned. The door creaked as he pushed it open. He cringed at the noise. But why did it bother him?
“Please read me!” Hardcover whispered as the top of a brown-haired head paused in front of his shelf. Though he knew humans couldn’t hear him, he repeated the plea over and over. Fingers crept toward him, creating a trail in the dust. If Hardcover had lungs, he would have held his breath. Just a couple more inches…
I built my first coffin when I was thirteen years old. Father said it wasn’t good enough. I built another. And another. For five years, they were never satisfactory, but Father was too weak to work, so the deceased in our town were buried in not-quite-good-enough coffins.
Arron didn’t believe in panicking. The threat of imminent loss brought fear, but few would dare steal from him or his team. But there were some. And that knowledge, combined with the fact that his brother hadn’t yet returned, made his stomach coil.
Josan clutched the doorframe, doubling over with a ragged cough. Smoke pricked his eyes with a hundred tiny daggers. He gagged, pressing his face into the crook of his arm.
The time has come for the king to die. I wrap my cloak around me, feeling chilled despite my burning thirst to be anywhere but here in this moment. I hate what I do, and my heart beats hollow in my ears as I step into the sunlight, bearing no shadow, leaving no sound. I glance at the doors of the golden hall, at the sacred crest of arms carved deep into the ancient wood.
He only sees white. White walls, white countertop at the front desk, white tiles beneath his feet. Sturdy white sneakers belonging to doctors and nurses clip-clop across the floor. They wear blue, like splinters of the sky cascading through the hallways.
The phone rings four times, but Mom doesn’t pick up. She knows it’s me. Probably wishes it wasn’t. I cross all the fingers on my left hand, gnawing my lip until it bleeds. Please answer. The receiver clicks.
