Fearless by Marianne Curley Read Free Book Online Page B

here.’
    â€˜It’s all right. I’m used to the souls now,’ she says. ‘I admit, sometimes I’ve wished death for myself. I even begged him once.’
    â€˜Forgive my ignorance, Mela, but I thought only souls came to Skade, not the living.’
    She comes closer, and I see that she’s breathing, her skin has colour, her heart is beating at a regular human rate, pumping blood around her body, but it’s the brief glance I catch into her eyes that reveals the burning flame of her soul and I know absolutely. ‘You’re alive.’
    â€˜Death is not the end, Ebony. But here –’ she glances over her shoulder, checking the door behind her – ‘dead or alive makes no difference.’
    â€˜Are there any other living human beings in Skade?’
    â€˜I’ve travelled to every province and haven’t met one like me yet.’
    â€˜It must be horrible to be the only one of your kind.’
    She smiles, placating me, trying to make me feel better about her plight. ‘I’ve found my place here. And you have enough to deal with, so please, don’t think of unpleasant things today.’
    â€˜I’ll try not to.’ Instead I’ll think of ways to escape.
    Even if it’s true that Luca has sealed the gates for a hundred years, it doesn’t mean I can’t escape him . Or his palace. That will take some planning and perfecting of my powers, and hopefully my wings will appear soon. But I have time. It’s more than a year until I turn eighteen, the golden age of maturity when angel law allows couples to marry.
    Mela has a calming presence, and talking to her keeps the anxiety at bay. It’s almost possible to imagine I’m in Jordan’s company.
    And since I’m still here, Nathaneal can’t yet have found away through the gates. He would have come for me if he could. So maybe Luca is telling the truth.
    The thought makes my stomach roll. And roll. ‘Argh … Mela, I think I’m going to be …’
    She runs off, returning quickly with a ceramic bowl she holds under my chin. In the most undignified way possible I bring up the contents of my stomach, which are mostly liquid. It hurts and I want to die, but since I can’t do that either, I settle for crawling back under the quilt, curling into the foetal position and wishing I could sleep for the next hundred years.
    Like they do in fairy tales.
    Like my daydreams when I was eleven and twelve, when I used to ride Shadow into the wooded hills at the rear of our property and pretend I was meeting my beautiful prince.
    Oh, Nathaneal, where are you? What are you thinking?
    I take a deep breath and wipe away the tears soaking into the pillow. Crying will do me no good. I’m not giving up on Nathaneal finding a way into Skade, but escaping is going to be top of my agenda every minute of every day until I’m out of here.
    Mela strokes my forehead as you would a child with a fever. I want to scream at her to leave me alone. But that’s just because I’m angry and scared. And lashing out from my fears and frustrations will get me nowhere. I will have to be clever to get through this.
    I drag myself into a sitting position and swing my legs to the floor. The bowl with my vomit is still in Mela’s hand. ‘Thank you.’ I go to take it from her, but she moves it outof my reach and heads to the bathroom at the other end of the apartment.
    Standing at the bedroom window, I draw the heavy curtains aside so I can see where, exactly, I’m living. It’s morning, though nothing like those stunning mornings growing up in the Oakes Valley. The sky here is dull, bleaker than the cloudiest, coldest, most dismal winter’s day on Earth.
    Streaks of purple, bright pink and crimson light suddenly fall on my hand where it’s leaning on the windowsill. Skade’s sun is trying to show itself through a break in the clouds. The break widens,