The Eye of God (The Fall of Erelith) Read Online Free PDF Page B

the ache in his throat. Focusing on the image of the coat’s true and proper shape, he Spoke. One by one, the threads wove together until the hem was restored.
    Blaise turned to the sergeant and offered her his best smile. She paled when he narrowed his eyes. “Please do lead the way, Sergeant.”
    Waiting until he knew she was aware of him staring, he lowered his gaze to admire her figure.
    Her face turned a bright red in the lantern light. Pivoting on a heel, she marched down the hall. Her skirts billowed out around her in sharp contrast to the way her tight-fitted coat clung to her lithe frame.
    “We’ve one with an unmarked collar I’d like you to look at first, fresh in from the guards,” the woman said, stopping at a cell door. Pulling out a ring of keys from beneath her coat, she unlocked it and stepped aside. In one smooth motion, she drew her sword and waited. “We need to know who owns him and his number. The usual.”
    “Is this slave dangerous, then?” he asked, grasping hold of one of the bars and pulling the door open. The woman shrugged and didn’t respond.
    The light from the hall lanterns didn’t penetrate far into the gloom of the cell. Blaise stepped in and stared down at the still figure lying on the floor. While not tall enough to be a man, the boy was too well developed and too muscular to be young, either. Blaise tilted his head. Maybe fourteen or fifteen, if his guess was right.
    Kneeling awoke aches in Blaise’s legs and back.
    “Well?”
    Blaise ignored the woman, responding with the same silence she had answered him with, focusing on the slave in front of him. Instead of the copper, bronze, or silver collars he frequently saw, the polished circlet of gold gleamed in the light. Unevenly cut locks of dark hair framed a smooth jaw and tanned face. Blood darkened the torn singlet. Blaise reached down and touched the boy’s throat.
    The heartbeat beneath his fingers pounded strong and even. He slid his hand down to touch the collar and listened for the voices of its creator.
    Silence.
    “There are no secrets in a world watched by God,” he Spoke in a whisper.
    The collar burned beneath Blaise’s hand and its flames devoured his every thought in a fury before everything went dark.
     
    ~*~
     
    Sand rained down on Terin from the cracks in the stones above. The beat of hundreds of stomping feet drummed through him, dictating the thud of his heart. Each and every breath ached in his chest and roused the pain of his bruised ribs.
    The memory of waking eluded him, as did his arrival at the cell packed full of children. Terin’s hands were bound by manacles with a thick chain connecting him to the small boys on each side of him.
    The weight of another shackle around his throat sought to cut off his breath, its sharp edge biting the tender skin beneath his chin.  The chains rattled with the shifting, fidgeting motion of the children staring at one another with wide eyes and pale faces.
    The crowd overhead roared its approval at something, and more sand fell down on Terin. His eyes itched and burned, and he blinked away the grit.
    Standing at the portcullis, a gray-clad guard stared out through the tunnel at the sand-filled pit beyond. The man whooped his satisfaction, echoing the cheering Citizens above.
    “When they take you in,” someone whispered from the bench opposite him, “grab a weapon—any’ll do. Don’t wait for them to come to you. It’ll be too late.”
    Terin glanced over at the dark-haired boy and frowned at the bronze collar encircling the slave’s throat. When he went to look away, dark eyes met his.
    “He’ll kill you first,” the bronze-collared slave muttered.
    “Who?” Terin asked.
    “You.”
    “Who will kill me first?” Terin stared down at his hands. Sand caked where he bled, and where it didn’t, a pale, yellow dust coated him. It wasn’t quite enough to hide the scars criss-crossing his skin. Only a few of them were acquired from the Arena, but he