Читать книгу Original Syn - Beth Kander - Страница 14

Ere is rooted to the spot, unable to take his eyes off the incredible sight before him. His fingers remain locked, vice-like, around the handle of his water bucket. Alone, scouting for water while others set up camp, he hadn’t paid attention, stepped on a dry twig—and now here he is, a speechless idiot statue, staring.

Staring at a girl.

An unbelievably beautiful girl.

Though flecked with mud, she’s still somehow cleaner than anyone he’s ever seen, radiating with a sort of glowing… glow, he thinks stupidly. She’s wearing all black, blending in with the night; her hair, too, is black, but there’s a radiant light to her skin, her eyes. He tries to remember a word, the word for something as ethereal as she. The word reveals itself: an angel.

Then the angel speaks.

“Who in Heaven and Hell are you?”

Her voice is not nearly as angelic as her appearance. It’s sharp and oddly accented. He hesitates, and she looks at him, her eyes traveling from his face to his arms, his water bucket, back to his face. She speaks again, with less command and more curiosity.

“Can you speak?”

“Of course I can speak,” Ere retorts.

“Then tell me your name.”

“Ere.”

“Air? That’s a weird name. Like ‘the air we breathe’?”

“No, Ere, as in—the way things were.”

“Huh. I don’t know if that’s weirdly nostalgic or just stupid.”

“I’ll have to ask my mother whether she was being ‘weirdly nostalgic’ or just stupid when she chose it. What’s your name?”

She does not hesitate. “Ever.”

“Ever?” He repeats incredulously. And then, before he can stop himself, he snipes back: “Well, yes. Ever. That’s definitely a less stupid name than Ere.”

The girl bursts out laughing, then stops as abruptly as she started. She narrows her eyes.

“Are you… teasing me?”

It strikes him as odd that she would have trouble selecting that word. “Um, yes.”

“What gives you the right to tease me?”

“The right…?”

“Do you know who my father is?”

“I don’t even know who you are,” Ere says, bemused.

Her eyes narrow further. “Where are you from?”

What’s wrong with this girl?

Her questions made no sense. Where was anyone “from”? Who would ask such a question? He starts to respond, then realizes. That was too odd a query. A question no Original would ever ask another Original. Nomadic people don’t compare many notes on “home sweet home.” Ere cocks his head and listens closely—he has never been close enough to hear the sound before, but now—yes. There it is. A soft but unmistakable humming. Coming from the girl.

She can’t be….

But even as he resists accepting the fact, he knows it to be true. The beautiful girl is not an Original. Despite the heat of the evening swamp, a cold sweat breaks out on Ere’s forehead at this realization. He tries to quickly calculate why a Syn would be here, apparently alone, in the middle of the swamp. Unless she wasn’t alone.

“I asked you where you are from,” the Syn girl says, repeats, louder. “Identify yourself and your sector. You are required by law to do so, and you know it.”

“I…” The boy’s voice cracks and goes out on him. He wonders if he should run, or hold his ground and try to mislead her in some way. And then he sees it happen—the moment when his hesitation gives him away, and realization widens the uncanny girl’s perfect eyes.