All tagged Betrayal
Four days out from Carakko, they passed the first floating outpost. Vemway, still paler than usual and with his perfume not quite hiding the faint aroma of bile, peered across the waves at the towering structure. Half-cut timber bulwarks rose high above the water, their lower sides crusted with salt and seaweed, a few barnacles hanging on for dear life.
The putrid stench of corrupted blood hung thick in the air. Father Gascoyne knelt, his cloak pooling around him like the shadows that lurked in the hall, and touched the stain on the ground. As his fingers brushed against the paw print the world leaped into sharp clarity, colours and light swirling across his vision.
Betty was worried. I didn’t even need to be her twin to know that; supposed mystical bonds and other claptrap aside, it was obvious to anyone with eyeballs. Helped that she told me, too. I wasn’t one of her clique, not one of the shallow hangers on that flocked around her at school. I was unthreatening, safe.
The girl slipped out of the room like a ghost, vanishing as soon as the door closed. The boy wondered if she just evaporated as soon as she was out of sight; or maybe she just carefully missed the creaky stair as she went down.
He could hear footsteps going thump-thump-thump somewhere else, outside his head, outside the dark. Far away now, then close. Far away. Close.
