City of Burning Shadows (Apocrypha: The Dying World) by Barbara J. Webb Read Free Book Online

brought the same look of awe to their faces.
    Not that we had tourists anymore. After the disaster in Tala, tubes all over the world had shut down. Sure, people could fight their way through the desert on the overland routes, but why would they? Trade had dried up with the rains. Like everything else in this city, our world-renowned markets had crumbled in the heat and blown back into the desert.
    This wasn’t to say the streets were empty, just that the color and life had drained away. Desperate men and women, driven from their homes and storefronts by skyrocketing utility costs, hawked overpriced and dwindling goods to people who could no longer afford them. They called after Iris and me—our clothes were clean and neither of us looked water-starved—but even if that put us among the most privileged in the city, it didn’t mean we had any money.  
    It was all such crap. “This is what the gods left us. These people, this city. What are any of them supposed to do?”
    Iris didn’t even blink at my comment out of nowhere. It was another nice thing about her. “This city is angry. The whole world is angry. It’s just in some places, they have the hope of survival to distract them. Here, the only choices they have are ones that will just make them die faster.”
    And that was the problem, wasn’t it? “Everyone sitting around and waiting for…what? For the gods to reappear as suddenly as they went away? For them to swoop back in and save us?”
    “Any day now, I’m sure.” Iris’s voice was as rough with anger as my own. “Might as well wait for the desert sand to turn to water.”
    “We tried that, you know?”  
    Iris’s eyebrows shot up and speckles of red and orange rippled over her skin. She still had some work to do before she could flawlessly pass as human. “You tried to turn the desert to water?”
    “Before the worst of the riots. Before so many priests died. We thought—maybe if we all worked together….”
    Iris was a creature for whom magic was as natural as breathing, and even she was shocked by the idea. “Can you really—obviously you didn’t—but could you have?”
    “The scale was too enormous. The amount of water we would have needed to make a difference—the magnitude of the transformation. The definitions, the limitations—even if we could have worked out the math, created the right ritual, it would have taken far too many trained gifted to pull it off. By the time we had even an inkling of what we needed, well, it wasn’t an option anymore. The temple leaders were dead and the rest of us were hiding.”  
    “Humans,” Iris grumbled. “You’re all crazy. You, Amelia, all of you.”
    So she was still a little upset about the Jansynian business. “What choice do we have? We’re stuck here. It’s not like the rest of us can turn into birds and just fly away.”
    Iris sighed and her thick magenta hair paled and drooped. “And so I’m stuck here too. I can’t leave her, Ash. Especially not to this.”
    Shifters weren’t known for their long-term involvements. They weren’t known for their long-term anything. And maybe if they’d met before the world collapsed, Iris’s relationship with Amelia would have been an intense fling, burning bright for a time, then fading. But none of us were the people we used to be.
    Unfortunately, I couldn’t think of anything to say that would cheer Iris up. Nothing that wouldn’t be a lie.  
    As night fell in earnest, the downtown streets became even more haggard looking. Shadows intruded in the gaps between buildings, in vacant windows and doorways. What had once been a prismatic sea of light was, like everything else, fractured and dying.
    As we reached a corner that had managed to retain its working streetlights, Iris put a hand on my arm. “Wait here. One of Amelia’s contacts lives right down that alley, but if he sees you with me, he’ll spook.”
    I obediently planted myself next to a wall, under the light, and waited.
    I