Читать книгу Zenith - Lindsay Cummings, Sasha Alsberg - Страница 11
ОглавлениеKLAREN
Year Twelve
THE GIRL WAS BORN TO DIE.
In darkness she stood with her palms pressed to the cold glass of her tower. She was alone, protected as all of the Yielded were, staring out at the Conduit below. Swirls of black and silver and blue. An endless, starlit sea.
Each morning, she found herself here before the sun rose, imagining what it would feel like to touch the abyss. To feel the freedom of a single day where she could make her own choices, choose her own steps, one delicate moment at a time.
Her palms slid from the glass.
It was a gift, this body. A way to change her world, and the others beyond.
As the girl stood there, she thought of her dreams. Nameless faces, uncertain futures, deaths she couldn’t stop, births she had predicted before the dawning of their times.
The Yielded were special.
The Yielded were loved.
Outside, the darkness shifted. The girl gasped and pressed her hands back to the glass, heart racing as she waited.
It began slowly. A flicker on the dark horizon, far beyond the swirling Conduit. A flame, fighting for life. Then it sprung forth, veins of crimson light stretching into the sky, spreading to yellow, orange, pink the color of laughing cheeks.
The girl smiled.
It was a new act. Something she’d only just begun to discover how to do.
She loved the way it made people listen to her. Loved the way it made their minds seem to bow in her midst.
If her dreams were true, then someday she would use this smile for greatness. For glory. For the hope of her people.
Today she stood watching, far above the Conduit, as the red sun rose.
