The Wilds (Reign and Ruin 1) Read Online Free PDF

"It's
certainly a bizarre contrast we have, isn't it? You having no
dreams at all and I having so many it's a wonder I'm not clinically
insane."
    My breaths were
shallow, uncomfortable and he wouldn't look away or let me go.
    "I'm sorry," I
offered. Cirrus shrugged and a nervous grin flitted over his face.
"So, what does that make me?" I asked finally.
    "To me?" He
paused and the net tightened. "To me, you're the cool breath of
wind I need to wake up." I felt my face burn and he looked away,
casting his net aside. I quickly shot back the rest of my drink.
That was sure a strange way to put things.
    Cirrus
straightened his stance sharply and plucked up the piece of paper.
"Your contract," Cirrus declared, laying it down on the desk with
an air of finality, sweeping away my empty glass. "We will battle
it out for the position of King. Or Queen. Let loose in the Middle
Canvas, we work towards a common goal, using the tools given to us
and the talents we've inherited."
    "Common
goal?"
    Cirrus pulled a
necklace out of his pocket; a simple, thin gold hoop netted with
wire. "Accept the historic Reign Walk. Catch the opponent. Steal
the symbol. Win."
    "You want me .
. . to fight you?"
    "No, Maggie, I
believe our modern time and the basic foundations of civility
discourage warfare," he answered dryly and set the necklace
pointedly on the contract. "Think of it more as a game of
Hide-and-Seek."
    I rubbed my
warm cheeks and eyed the necklace suspiciously.
    "It can't be as
simple as that," I eventually countered. "If all you need to do is
find the necklace, I could just hide out. Drop it in the sea. You
could just take it right now."
    "The rules of a
Reign Walk are written into our constitution," Cirrus said. He
traced his finger slowly around the thin chain as he explained.
"There is no killing each other. You must never remove your symbol.
And the Walk must end in a period of six days, after which the
symbols we wear burn into our bodies and eat our souls, deeming us
both unfit to rule."
    "Eating our
souls . . . symbolically?" I squeaked.
    "The world of
Palet is wide and ever-changing." He completely ignored the very
legitimate concern of losing my human soul and pulled from
out of his desk a large atlas. Flipping through a few pages, he
smoothed down the crease in the middle and spun the book so that it
was facing me. "We will both set down in the Middle Canvas," he
said as I reached the table. "I will be on one side and you will be
on the other. As we journey across the landscape, it is up to us to
gain support wherever we can. And somewhere along the way, your
symbol will be stolen." He smiled and patted my hand indulgently.
"Or vice-versa, of course."
    The landscape
was green and dotted with various cities, roads and rivers. It
could have been any countryside in any world. The green fields
along the bottom and the side continued off the page, as if the
land was constantly growing and the Middle Canvas was only the
center of a much larger country. One thing was for sure: it was
fucking huge.
    "Where is
that?" I asked, pointing at the blurry stretch of yellow desert
that lined the top of the page. It was almost as if it hovered on
another level, like a step up in the sky. Glancing up at Cirrus, I
caught a shadow falling across his face. It was only fleeting.
    "That is the
Wilds . . . it's undomesticated and unexplored." With a determined
shake of his head, he pulled the atlas out from under my hands and
snapped it shut. "We won't be going there.
    "But I've never
liked ‘simple'," he continued swiftly. "I much prefer things that
twist and I just can't pass up a chance to make it a little more
interesting."
    Much prefer
things that twist . . . ? I didn't like how that sounded and
the glint in his eye just fed my paranoia.
    "I have the
ability to bring your uncle back. His human soul, that is. His
connection to the world he created would be severed. But if you win
you get both the throne and the knowledge that your useless uncle
wakes