A Touch of Light (The Ashes of Avarin, #1)

by Thiago Abdalla

She couldn’t fight, not with her curse. That’s why she became a hunter. Keeping her defenses up would exhaust her, and she’d be overwhelmed, absorb the emotions all around, mix them with her own, and be controlled by whichever won the constant battle within her. No telling if she’d ever come back to herself from the chaos. She’d barely managed last time.

She looked down at the ashen earth around Chatta.

Nasha looked down at her bloody hands. A mercy killing for the good of the clan. But would they see it that way? A Sloper killing a Root? No. It didn’t matter where she’d come from. She was Ronar. I did the right thing. Still, how many times had doing the right thing proven more important than how other people chose to see her? Would they see through her Sloper origins? All the rumors that had sprouted from her own Proving?

Her breath puffed as she detached the head from the body, then bundled it into her pack. She could have hacked at the face to obscure it, but she’d need it as proof for Mansa.

Maybe they’d turn away from the body if they thought she might run. “There’s something different in his veins. Had to be sure he was dead.” She wiped her hands on her vest again, but Iallo didn’t seem convinced.

I’m Ronar, same as you.”

Eager eyes and screaming voices rained on the men staring into the eyes of death through the nooses before them. Spectators clambered onto boxes and carts, jostling for a better view of other men’s failures, likely hoping they’d be enough for them to forget their own.

Were those saved lives enough for Lynn to forget her own failures?

For a religion focused on life, its faithful sure enjoyed the ending of it.

“You follow the Lord Keeper’s orders, or those bodies won’t be the only ones swingin’. Won’t be quiet neither!” It’s never quiet in here.

A slender shadow took the keys, stepped slowly over him,

opened Lynn’s cell door.

Rella came into t...

Bac, a towering man with enough fur

to be mistaken for a bear;

Gaire, a shorter, balder man with more fingers than teeth...

in his one go...

“I don’t care how many times you have to fuck the Lord Keeper, you’re getting us out of here. Today.”

Vedyr.

With all her power, she threw her head back from the bars and into Pert’s chin,

her Sentinel identity safe.

them,

He’d kept his word and reached out to the Church. He hadn’t told the priestess Lynn was a Sentinel, but there was no list because he’d gotten her pardoned. There wouldn’t be one ever again.

“I

understand the blood of the Ever-Tree can keep a body whole?”

Ellana would have to forgive him. She was still alive, but this was Myrra’s only chance.

She’d left the Slopes, and none of them had her curse.

Bahar kept shaking his head. Even after all these years and a son among the Ronar, his Domain beliefs still got the better of him. Nasha could never understand them. They were what had forced him to bring Devu to the Ronar as a babe and subject him to a life on the Slopes—all because his mother had died while birthing him, as if that cursed the boy somehow. But returning life to the Earth was not a curse, and Nasha doubted these Domain folk knew what a true curse, like hers, really was.

I’m the one who’s nervous about this ritual of death you people insist on. Really, Nasha, does it have to be—”

Nasha, opened the bag, and rolled Chatta’s head towards Tomu. “The Warden is dead.”

“I’m no Sloper—I’m Ronar! And he was withering away!

Ferrin was waiting at the gate.

A true Sentinel would not risk letting her go, Dentos said. A true Sentinel has command over death.

No. There were no signs. To command death is to know when to use it.

Nothing compared to the doors of the cathedrals in Alteria. Was that how Elwin would see her if they met after years apart? A shadow of a true Sentinel? I’ve saved lives. The priestess will tend to them at the temple. Roki laughed at her. That changes nothing.

That was what he’d told her when he took her in, laughing when, even as a child, she warned him she’d bring death into his home.

Would the Earth thank me for that? Lift my curse?

mount. Lynn

shadowed street and let the voices flood her mind. Their endless supply of rage engulfed her,

Too relaxed. Ferrin.

You’ve done enough. Leave him alone! Alren screamed. Lynn channeled his anger towards Vedyr and took a few steps back, then sprinted forward, putting all of his strength into her jump.

“What else do you want from me, Father? Jovu is ash, yet you cling to him like the fires that burned him away.” His words tasted like ash themselves, but Adrian pressed on. “I’m here fighting for Othonea by your side, yet you won’t even tell me what Jovu died fighting for. He’s gone, but I’m here!”

“Your brother earned his army. He followed my will while all you did was demand answers you did not deserve. Then you ran off with that . . .”

“Jovu would not have done this. He knew blood holds ties. If you want to learn what we were

truly fighting for, you need to earn that knowledge, like he did, and that is not done by abandoning your family so the Pontiff can use you to strike at me. It is not done by putting yourself willingly into his hands.” Father gazed back on Adrian, for just a moment. “As ...

Father scoffed. “That has always been your problem. You focus on the lambs when you could stand with the wolves.”

“The Light controls the Legion. You do not follow the Pontiff’s orders.”

“General,” Derren snapped. “And this is Commander Adrian Pell, the Light of the Legion. You will be following his orders now, Captain. How are your men posted?”

“King Iridan is not part of the Legion. I’ll not have you mention him again.” He glanced at Derren, then back at the captain. “We’ll have the room, Burnham. General Derren will summon you when

Nasha strained to keep her eyes open through the ache pressing behind them.