The Network ( Book One of the Grounders Series )

7

Banishment is bad news. Every so often someone commits an offense so vile, like murder, that they are banished into the Artery to live alone until you're but before the trial for trial...or execution.

The wrought-iron bars rise and the stone door falls. The Artery is dimly lit by torches. In only ten minutes, the Hearth will shut burn out and all the doors to the clans will be shut.

My arms and legs are bound with lengths of rope. The cord digs into my flesh, rubbing the skin raw as the clan members push me toward the open door.

Just give me the word and all of the people pushing you out now will be dead.

I this time I don't ignore. Instead I think up a reply. You got me into this. Get out of my head.

I will never be gone until I'm free, and even then I'll destroy the Council. If you help me I will make you king, if you don't I will kill you. I will curse you with the same painful death Carter suffered.

Who the hell are you?

Alvus Contantine knew me as the Lizard of Death. I am an ancient Vonican legend, on that vanished when you did, but I am surely real and I have followed you into these tunnels.

An ancient legend?

Let's just say that you want to be on my good side.

You've killed people, you almost made me strangle my only family. I don't think you have a good side.

You've made a fatal mistake Alaric Constantine.

And then like that is was gone. There was no more inky blackness filling my mind. I felt totally secure, no more intruders were inside my head.

But at the same time I felt anxious. Whatever that was, it's obviously planning something huge.

Right as we reach the edge of the doorway, a scream emitted through the air. everyone turned, all eyes landing on my Mother, who was screaming as if someone had thrown her in the Hearth.

People rushed to her aid, but before they got to her, she went still, standing stiff as a board, with emotionless feature. Her eyes looked as if they were gazing upon everyone in sight.

"Dreams of Darkness shall consume.

Three men and three women shall presume.

The Drangon shall rise, unless the unseen sees.

Or life will become a swarm of bees.

Don't be too hasty,
For the time is set.

But don't run too slow,
Because Darkness is a threat."

Oh no.

Her eyes become a fiery red as she recites to prophecy, one heard only from the demonic voice invading my head. Her voice is as scratchy and gruff as his, as if he'd possessed her.

The my Mother-slash-mystery-voice-dude says something new.

Alvus Constantine has failed you with his nursery rhyme poetry. His prophecy shall end in the fate of the Council. Whoever stands against the Dragon shall die.

For a moment after that everything is still. Everyone stands, staring at my possessed mother confused.

And then she is laying on the ground, golden ichor bubbling beneath her skin.

The blood of the divine destroys mortals. The voice says, this time his voice seemed to come from nowhere, reverberating off the walls of the cavern.

Holes burn from the inside of my mother's flesh, oozing ichor. Moments later she is nothing more than a pile of ashes.

Once the shock of the situation is passed, I here someone yell, "get that devil's spawn out!"

Many people snap into action, shoving my out the doors of my own clan. The gate falls as the door rise and I am confronted with stone, immovable, impassable stone. I am no longer a member of Daws. Now I really belong nowhere.