The Unfinished World (The Armor of God Book 2) by Diego Valenzuela Read Free Book Online

hell it meant. Suddenly he wasn’t so sure he wanted it.
    “It was hard to tell from ground level, even from Jade’s height, but they’re unnaturally round.”
    “ Right? ” Garros said, sounding perhaps too excited, and she nodded. “I noticed that too.”
    “Are they? I hadn’t noticed,” said Ezra.
    “And look. If you see from up there, it’s even stranger; there’s something else I noticed about this one. Come on,” Jena said and got up. She climbed up the grassy incline, and they followed.
    It took several minutes to climb high enough, and they did it in silence. Several yards up the mountain, higher up than even the giant Creuxen could see, where the cold breeze had turned into a strong wind, they could witness a great stretch of land in front of them.
    There were at least five more oases within eyeshot, all of them far smaller than the one which now granted them safe haven from the dangers of the lifeless world.
    “Well, I’ll be . . . you’re right,” said Ezra, taking deep breaths and sitting back down. The green spots scattered on the plain were not perfectly circular, but close enough to be remarkable, and even appear unnatural.
    From up there he could see the four massive Creuxen; they were resting on the edge of the oasis, barely covering a fragment of its considerable expanse. It was far larger than he initially imagined. Far larger than any of the other ones.
    “I wonder what they’re all about,” he said.
    “Now, look. At that—that wet area near the center, like a swamp,” Jena said. “Oh, it’s even more obvious from up here. Do you see it?”
    Ezra had been blessed with good eyesight, so he could see what Jena meant even from far away. Almost exactly at the center of the oasis, near the edge of a dense forest, there was a circular pool of water adorned in intricate patterns of grass and earth. Like the edges of the oasis, it did not seem natural either.
    “What do you think that is?” Jena asked.
    “I don’t know, I can barely see that far, but there’s definitely something down there,” Garros replied. “Did you notice anything like that in the others?”
    “I remember seeing something similar in one—one of the small ones—but I guess I just thought it was part of the terrain,” Jena said, and crossed her arms, fighting off the cold. “From up here, it actually looks . . . what’s the word—significant? If Erin’s okay with it, maybe we should see what it is. I know we’re in a hurry to get to Kerek—”
    “We are, but look,” said Garros. “I’m not entirely sure, but I think Kerek is somewhere near that mountain over there, that tall one. You see it?”
    Ezra followed Garros’ finger toward the horizon. There was a tall peak that pierced the clouds, reaching a height far greater than the lesser mountains at its feet.
    “If that’s what I think it is, Kerek is just next to it, at its base,” said Garros. “It might not take more than half a day to get there, if we don’t run into any more trouble.”
    He had learned during these weeks of travel that mountains had a way of twisting one’s sense of distance, but Garros’ estimate seemed accurate.
    “Yeah, I think you’re right,” said Jena.
    Ezra’s teeth began to chatter from the cold when a blast of wind hit them. All these characteristics of the wild, the natural ambience in which humanity had lived for tens of thousands of years, was something alien now. He wondered if, after so long living in a cocoon where every aspect of the atmosphere was regulated for comfort, the human race had become somehow weaker.
    More so, he wondered if this world which had never been truly theirs would even welcome them back after their victory.
     
    When they made their way back down, Ezra felt a little better. The headache was still there, as was the mark on his face that would let anyone know that he had survived being punched by a behemoth like Garros, but he felt cleaner. Emotionally. He was even capable of