The Network ( Book One of the Grounders Series )

33

Cicada, Jonah and I sit abreast in the room right beneath the throne. Our arms and legs bound by thin cord.

My body trembles violently as I replay the image of Joss falling from his cell tithe lava below.

I will kill him. I will be the one to murder Jez.

Cicada and Jonah talk scarcely but I don't join. My thoughts are somewhere else.

Then the door opens, and Jez steps in. "Greetings visitors." He says, smiling menacingly.

"What do you want with us?" Cicada demands.

"Oh nothin," Jez says, "in fact I would let you go right now."

"Then why don't you?"

"Because Arosi has given me a task and I intent to fulfill it purely because my king has instructed me to."

Three guards pull us to our feet and follow Jez back to the throne overlooking the city.

At the bottom of the step leading to the city is a large fountain, gurgling water from one bowl to the next. I hadn't noticed that before.

Three posts have been set up, with shackles on either side, like the post I was strapped to the day of my execution.

A horrible thought flows through my head.

Jonah, Cicada and I are all strapped to the posts and the guards stand behind us.

"Arosi has instructed me to spill your blood on my cobblestone, that way I can rule in a place where Alvus bled," Jez says as the guards pull slender leather whips from their loincloths.

All three of them strike in unison, and there's nothing that has ever happened in my life that could prepare me for this pain.

Stinging agony rips through my body, tearing apart my nerves. I clench my teeth hard together to keep from scream.

The second lash comes and I'm barely able to contain my voice with a grunt. I look into Cicada's eyes, looking for her normal reassuring expression, and find nothing but agony. Her pain sends fury burning in my blood.

By the twentieth lash, a scream tears through my body so violently that my through is raw. I can feel hot blood trickling down my back.

I lose count of the lashes by sixty, and start feeling light headed a few lashes later. The pain is too much. I wish it would go away. I wish I could die. I wish this hell could end. I want it to end. I need it to end.

I've finally given up. I've finally realized that no matter what we do Arosi will win and everyone will die.

Black grows at the edges of my vision like burning paper. I am so close to dying. I am so close to leaving this painful, hellish world behind and going to the heavens where Constantine awaits me.

But then, so suddenly, so abruptly, the whipping stops. Everything stops. I am numb.

I look to my left and see Cicada, weak and mangled, with lacerated, torn skin hanging off her back. Anger pulsed through my veins, mixed with my blood, a deadly concoction.

I close my eyes and imagine my shackles crumbling to dust. I also imagine a sword materializing in my hands.

Jez's eyes widen and he doesn't hesitate to sent his three guards at he as he flees downstairs.

My blade has a mind of its own, slaughtering the first guard with a simple slash across the throat.

The other two are more skilled but my anger keeps me unharmed. I juggle with deflecting two blade as once, and then find and opening and slash across the shins of one of the guards. He crumbles to the ground and I kick his blade away.

The other one hacks his blade toward my head. I sidestep his blow and slide my blade through his ribs.

I rip my blade free and fling it across the platform. The point sticks in the face of the other fallen guard.

I turn to my friends and close my eyes. First I imagine all there wounds sealing to nasty looking scars, and then I imagine their shackles crumbling away.

Then I rush downstairs after Jez.

I find he stepping onto one of the metal planks balanced across the abyss. He walks the thing with much more ease that I do. There's no way I can follow him.

I close my eyes and imagine a dagger forming in my hand. I open them and lock my sides on the spot right between his shoulder blades. I'll be lucky if this works, I've never been good with knives.

I raise the blade and fling it over the abyss. It spirals through the air for what seem like an eternity, but then sticks solidly into his back.

Jez screams in agony and loses his balance on the plank. His screams disappear the moment he does.

I don't waste time. I know the people in the city will want our heads for killed Jez.

I rush back to the throne platform and watch in horror as Cicada and Jonah are trying vainly to stay out of range of more guards swords. At the command of my mind, they all crumble into fits and screams.

Across the city I see a large wooden catapult being set up. We need to get out of here. Now.

The. I look eyes with the fountain. Each of the four bowl are rimmed with tiny pieces of stone shaped like teeth, each one has a letter.

I rush down the the fountain as the first boulder is launched in our direction. The rock hurtles over the city and smashes into the throne, shower Cicada, Jonah and I in rock shards. I reach the fountain and look at the first bowl, pressing on one of the stone pieces with the letter A on it. It doesn't budge. I find a L, nothing. I run through possible things relating to Arosi. Death! I locate a D on the bottom bowl and it slides down easily, disappearing into the bowl.

My instincts tell me to move up a bowl. I step onto the first bowl so I can get a better look and locate the E. It doesn't budge.

What could the password be? Something tells me that if I can get a letter for each bowl, we'll have a way out of here. But I have no idea what I could be and I have no time to press on ever letter on all four bowls until I figure it out.

Another boulder flies over the city and smashes into the steps. A cloud of dust and rock particles swarms us. The ground trembles beneath us and I struggle to stay balanced on the rim of the bowl.

I return to the letter and realize that when I was struggling, I pressed on the A, it worked.

What could start with DA. Four letters.

I climb up the next bowl and rack my brain.

DAWN?

I press the W and nothing happens.

DAZE?

The Z is useless.

DARK?

The R works. A feeling of relief flood me and I climb to the next bowl and press hard of the K.

The third bowl shatters and I fall hard to the stone. Water spills from the broken fountain onto my chest.

I look down the length of my body and suck in a breath.

The tiny waterfall is a portal to what looks like a dark tunnel. Veins of magma cover the walls.

This must be the destination. This must be where Arosi is. We've reached the end of our journey.