The Young Elites Read Online Free PDF

flames lick my feet, their heat searing me.
It’s coming for me—it’s going to devour me.
    As I struggle to keep away from the flames, I notice the strangest thing. The locusts come near, then pass straight through my body. As if they aren’t really there at all. I watch the scene before me—the insects pass right through the Inquisitors too, as well as the crowd of people below.
    This is all an illusion,
I suddenly realize.
Just like the phantom silhouettes that attacked Father. None of it is real.
    One Inquisitor has staggered to his feet, his eyes burning from the smoke, and points his sword in my direction. He lurches toward me. I find my last reserves of strength and pull as hard as I can against my chains. Hot blood trickles down my wrists. As I struggle, he draws closer, materializing from a sea of locusts and darkness.
    Suddenly—
    A rush of wind. Sapphire and silver. The fire at my feet flickers out into curls of smoke.
    Something streaks across my vision. A figure appears between me and the oncoming Inquisitor, moving with deadly grace. It’s a boy, I think.
Who is this?
This boy is
not
an illusion—I can sense his reality, the solidity of his figure that the black sky and the locusts don’t have. He is clad in a whirlwind of hooded blue robes, and a metallic silver mask covers his entire face. He crouches in front of me, every line of his body tense, his focus entirely on the Inquisitor. A long dagger gleams in each of his gloved hands.
    The Inquisitor skids to a halt before him. Uncertainty darts across his eyes. “Stand aside,” he snaps at the newcomer.
    The masked boy cocks his head to one side. “How impolite,” he mocks, his voice velvet and deep. Even in the midst of chaos, I can hear him.
    The Inquisitor lunges at him with his sword, but the boy dances out of its path and strikes with one of his daggers. It buries itself deep into the Inquisitor’s body. The man’s eyes bulge—he lets out a squeal like a dying pig. I’m too stunned to utter a sound. Something in me sparks with strange delight.
    Inquisitors see the battle and rush to their fallen comrade. They draw their swords at the boy. He just nods at them, taunting them to come closer. When they do, he slips through them like water between rocks, his body a streak of motion, blades flashing silver in the darkness. One of the Inquisitors nearly cuts him in half with a swing of his sword, but the boy slices the man’s hand clean off. The sword clatters to the ground. The boy kicks the fallen sword up into the air with one flick of his boot, then catches it and points it at the other Inquisitors.
    When I look harder, I notice that other masked figures flicker among the soldiers—others dressed in the same dark robes as the boy. He didn’t come here alone.
    “It’s the Reaper!” Teren shouts, pointing at the boy with a drawn sword. He starts heading toward us. His pale eyes are mad with glee. “Seize him!”
    That name.
I’d seen it before on the Young Elite carvings.
The Reaper.
He’s one of
them.
    More Inquisitors rush up the platform. The boy pauses for a moment to look at them, his blades dripping with blood. Then he straightens, lifts one arm high over his head, and sweeps it down again in a cutting arc.
    A column of fire explodes from his hands, slicing a line across the platform and dividing the soldiers from us with a wall of flame stretching high into the blackened sky. Shouts of terror come from behind the fiery curtain.
    The boy approaches me. I stare in fright at his hooded face and silver mask, the outline of his features lit by the inferno behind him. The only part of his face not hidden by his mask are his eyes—hard, midnight dark, but alight with fire.
    He doesn’t say a word. Instead, he kneels at my feet, then grabs the chains that shackle my ankles to the stake. The chains in his grasp turn red, then white hot. They quickly melt, leaving my legs freed. He straightens and does the same to the noose around my