The Coalition Episodes 1-4 by Aria J. Wolfe Read Free Book Online Page A

backwards then hesitated.
    Aliah rose to his feet, pulled the hood of his cloak over his head then slowly turned around. The hood concealed his face.
    "Go inside, Shai. Lock the door. Stay there until I send word." A shiver convulsed her. What was going on? What did he see?
    "Aliah, you're scaring me. Tell me what's going on!" She moved closer to him but he snapped his head up causing the hood to slip back. The early morning light slanted across the right side of his face. The green of his eyes were flecked with something dark, cold. He pulled the hood down again but not before she glimpsed the red rims of his eyes, the paleness of his skin. She shuffled back another step then stumbled on a rock and reached for Aliah to steady her.
    He pulled away from her. "Go inside, Shai!"
    Her stomach twisted. Tears stung her eyes then slipped down her cheeks. She swiped at them with the back of her hand.
    With his back to her, Aliah bent down again. He struggled with something as he stood back up. She sucked in a gulp of icy air. A pair of legs dangled over one of Aliah's arm s and a head, shrouded in a dark hood, hung over the other arm. Against her best friend's chest was a slender body. Who is that? Are they sleeping? Why would anyone sleep in the bushes?
    Aliah turned to slide himself and his burden through the bushes. A twig caught the person's hood and twisted it sideways, revealing thick dark hair and a slender face. Horror gripped Shai, turning her palms slick with sweat. Nestled in the crook of Aliah's arm was the gentle-featured face of a young girl. Even with pasty-grey skin and blue lips, Shai recognized her.
    Sileas.
    Her large, grey eyes were open. Staring, glassy. It was not the face of sweet slumber. A sharp gasp escaped Shai and she turned and ran, tripping over loose stones. She fled to the House, stumbled through the door then rammed the thick steel bolt into place.
    Heaving and gulping great breaths she slid against the door and crumpled in a heap on the floor. She refused to let any tears fall. An ache grew inside her, coiling tighter and tighter until it sprung loose inside her like a rabid animal. She had never felt this before. Its darkness enveloped her, swallowed her whole then spit her back out. It tossed her around before leaving her whimpering on the hard wooden floor.
    Then she remembered something. She'd comforted Aliah the last time she'd seen that look on his face, long ago.
    He must be feeling what she was experiencing now: the ache of grief.
    Oh Sileas.

CHAPTER 13
    Aliah
     
    Sweat ran in rivers down his back and chest, soaking his white shirt until it stuck to him like a second skin. Mud was caked under his fingernails even after he scrubbed his hands and arms in the river. He swallowed around the giant lump in his throat.
    Sileas was a sweet kid. Burying her in a shallow grave near the swollen river seemed heartless. He grimaced, then sat on a large rock near the edge of the hole he had just dug using his hands and a thin stone. That was the word: heartless.
    He glanced down at the thin body of the young girl. Her hands were clasped across her chest, folded as though she were resting. But beneath the grey cuff of her ruffled blouse, a crimson stain darkened her chest on the left side. He shuddered. It was what he had tried to shield Shai from seeing. Sileas's blouse had been torn open across her breasts. A fist-sized hole gaped below her ribs where her heart had been. The horror of it bore the mark of someone worse than the Gracious Leader.
    Someone like Lael's enemy: Samael, the ruler of Death. But what would Samael want with Sileas? The enemy was rarely seen and only mentioned in Lael by the Mothers as a fear tactic: to keep the children from crossing over Lael’s boundaries.
    Shai mentioned Sileas had an infraction last night. Something about the Chapel. What did Sileas do? She must've broken into the Chapel. Well that was stupid, but it wouldn't have been the first time someone had attempted it.