Empire of Dust Read Online Free PDF Page A

prey.
    Kat looks for Kokkymo—it’s unlike the mare to startle, and now she is nowhere in sight. Stiffly, Kat begins her walk home. The tall grass waves eerily, and a scent she can’t name causes her to shiver. The sky has taken on a sickening gray-green color.
    A surge of foreboding sweeps through her chest with the suddenness of a spear thrust, knocking the breath out of her.
    Something terrible, she knows, has happened.
    There’s movement in the trees ahead. The strange sorrow that beats in her heart has turned Kat’s legs to lead.
    The pebbles on the ground jump, and she hears a strange buzz in the air.
    A herd of gazelles breaks from the forest, all of them kicking up their hind legs in panic.
    Stampede.
    They race toward her like a surging tide, and Kat can do nothing to outpace them. Instead she stands, bracing for the impact of fur against her flesh. But it never comes. They veer slightly away from her at the last moment and wash around her, spraying her with clods of dirt.
    She sucks in a sharp breath as one of the gazelles skids to a stop directly in front of her, its flanks heaving, its straight black horns trembling.
    What? she asks silently, feeling the animal’s terror so keenly that now she is trembling, too. What has happened?
    She stares into the gazelle’s dark liquid eyes...and then she sees it.
    A house in flames. Smoke. Murder. Screams . She sees bodies in the courtyard.
    It’s Sotiria, lying next to the well, her dark hair streaming into a widening puddle of blood. Jacob’s mother. For many years, practically Kat’s own.
    She can’t breathe. In the gazelle’s eyes she sees Cleon, too, next to the gate, an ax head in his broad back.
    Jacob’s younger brothers, broken and lifeless, lie in the dirt.
    And in front of the flames is a flash of white-gold against burning red. Silvery hair. A slender, petite figure: Olympias.
    Kat’s knees buckle and she sinks slowly into the grass.
    So that is where the queen has been these past few days: looking for Kat. And when she couldn’t find her, she killed the closest thing Kat has to a family—Jacob’s.
    Her chest seizes and she can’t breathe.
    This is all her fault.
    If Jacob’s parents hadn’t taken her in, raised her as their own, the queen would have had no reason to hurt them.
    The children...
    She clutches at thick tufts of grass with her hands, holding on because around her the world is reeling. Just like that day when she was six and the queen’s men murdered her mother and then came looking for her. She climbed out the upstairs window and clung mutely to the thatched roof.
    Kat’s lungs don’t seem to be working, and golden spots dance in the blackness forming around her. Maybe she will pass out, die here, even, in the sweet summer grass... She gasps and air floods her chest.
    More hooves race toward her, but she doesn’t look up, not until she feels strong hands on her back. “Are you all right?” She hears Heph’s voice, and then she’s aware that he’s knelt down beside her and is holding her hands. “Were you thrown? I was looking for you. The stable hand said...”
    She stares at him speechless, unblinking, barely understanding the words tumbling from his lips.
    â€œHere, stand up so I can see you,” Heph says, pulling her up. He brushes dirt off her head and rubs both thumbs over her cheeks. “What is it?” he asks urgently. “For godssakes, Katerina, what has happened?”
    Kat tilts her head back and closes her eyes. The sun feels warm on her face, the same sun that Cleon, Sotiria and the children will never feel again. “They’re all dead.” The words slide out more like an animal howl of pain than a sentence.
    â€œWho?” Heph asks, taking her by the shoulders, gently rubbing the top of her arms. “Who is dead?”
    â€œMy family. Jacob’s parents and his little brothers. The