Читать книгу Kane and the Flame - Ар'лан ис'Дрекхэм - Страница 2

Only one wall of the house remained — a black, charred skeleton jutting from the ground like a gravestone. The boy curled into a ball beneath the floorboards, feeling the cold earth against his back, and pressed his hands over his ears to block out the screaming.

The screaming still seeped through his fingers.

It grew quieter, more muffled, then changed into another sound — wet, gurgling, one that twisted his stomach into a tight, painful knot. The boy squeezed his eyes shut even harder.

Then silence came.

In that silence — that sticky, heavy silence — a crackling began. Timid at first, as if someone was stirring in the ashes. Then bolder, more insolent, and soon it filled everything.

The fire.

The boy opened his eyes. Orange flickers danced in the darkness beneath the floor — light forcing its way through the gaps in the boards above. He watched the planks over his head begin to smolder, golden threads racing across them, the air turning hot and acrid.

If I scream, they’ll find me, he thought. It wasn’t just a thought. It was instinct, drilled into his core by fear.

He bit his lip until it bled and made no sound as the fire devoured his home, his family, his childhood.

And when the patrol cleared the rubble two days later, it wasn’t a boy that crawled out from under the earth. It was a wad of hatred, baked into a crust of ash and grief.