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

up on the floor after a particularly dangerous night on the
needle."
    "He's not
useless," I whispered.
    "Well, he is to
me." Cirrus put his hands together as if to consider how to phrase
his next sentence. "If I win, however, I get your throne and
something further." Cirrus stood up smoothly and walked to a grand
window on the far wall. He pushed back the velvet curtains and
gestured me closer.
    "Look out
there," Cirrus told me as I approached the window. "It's dark out,
I know, but try to see." I leaned forward slightly and looked hard
into the night. I saw the dim outlines of trees and bushes, but
little else.
    "I see trees,"
I replied. Cirrus shook his head and gently pulled me closer to the
glass. His fingers lingered on my arm, but he didn't seem to
notice. His eyes were glued to the blackness outside.
    "Look harder,"
he whispered. "Let your eyes get used to the dark."
    I leaned again
towards the glass and relaxed so that my eyes became familiar with
the night-time. I could see the blades of grass growing near the
bases of the trees and what looked like fireflies flittering around
the low bushes. It was all very beautiful with no neon lights or
discarded paper bags. My breath misted up on the dark glass like a
winter cloud.
    But suddenly,
my heart jumped and I stepped back from the window as a thin shadow
crawled across the ground out of the brush. It sniffed the air and
yawned, emitting a low hiss. I snapped my head to the man standing
beside me, and his eyes were already on mine. He nodded slowly and
motioned back to the window.
    The creature,
whatever the hell it was, slinked back off into the forest as
another one crawled down from a branch. Its long arms dragged along
the ground behind it and the claws from its hand dug into the earth
to pull up rocks and clumps of foliage. They were only a few yards
away from the window.
    "Can they get
in?" I heard myself saying. Cirrus shook his head. I searched
higher above the trees and lower to the ground, realizing that the
whole area was practically seething with shadows. And as we
watched, the beginnings of purple smoke crept through the tree line
and along the forest floor.
    "What are
they?" I asked.
    "My dreams,"
Cirrus replied. He let the velvet curtain fall back against the
window and stepped back. "My sleep is plagued with monsters; they
follow me whenever I am grounded. It has become so easy to float
this house away that I have spent very little time not in the
air."
    I remembered
the purple cloud. The barren wasteland and the vicious, billowing
violet haze that flew above it. Cirrus must have guessed my train
of thought.
    "He was a
merciful Painter, I'll give your uncle that. He gave me an escape
of sorts. A coward's escape, but beggars can't be choosers. I don't
have his gift." His face momentarily clouded over with discomfort.
"Unlike your uncle I cannot paint these creatures away. Those
shadows that you saw outside didn't just appear. Your uncle painted
his nightmares to get rid of them. I constructed them from material
to do the same."
    "You mean you
made those things deliberately?" I asked in disbelief. Cirrus shot
me a patient look and I gulped.
    "Come now,
Maggie. Do I look like a man who makes mistakes?" His eyes turned
from green to gray as he watched me. "They've earned a name around
Palet: my ‘experiments,' although they're nothing of the kind." He
paused. "They are present in waking and present in sleep. They
don't go away."
    "The
monsters?"
    "My dreams,"
Cirrus murmured. "No matter how many monsters I create with my
fingers, these nightmares are still in my head." Cirrus took off
his spectacles to wipe his eyes. His hands shook noticeably and I
instinctively moved closer. His distress was compelling and I
couldn't help myself. He was like an angel caught under the back
wheel of a truck. "I am so tired, Maggie," he sighed. "They won't
let me sleep. No matter how hard I try to chase them away, they're
still there. They're still in my world, they're still