Read Relinquish: Book II of the Rising Trilogy Online
Authors: Amy Miles
Relinquish: Book II of the Rising Trilogy
~THE RISING TRILOGY~
Book Two
R
elinquish
Also by Amy Miles
THE AROTAS TRILOGY
Forbidden
Reckoning
Redemption
LOVE & LUST
Captivate
The Rising Trilogy
Defiance Rising
~THE RISING TRILOGY~
Book Two
R
elinquish
AMY MILES
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright ©2013 by Amy Miles Books, LLC.
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
Also available in ebook format.
First paperback edition 2014
ISB
N
978-149494582
4
Ebook
ISBN
:
9781310978081
Table of Contents
Contents
To Rick and Landon~
My amazing reasons to always return from my fantasy worlds.
To Danielle Bannister~
You have been a constant over the past two years of my writing life. I am
deeply grateful for all of your help, advice, and sound wisdom when you know I’m reaching for an unreachable deadline.
You are always there for me.
One
Nearly one year later…
The inky black sky above is littered with feathered clouds, lighted by vivid bursts of red and green, which mirror the battle below. A near constant rumble rises from the ground as I press my palms into the cold, moist earth. The spider drones are on the move.
The hairs along my arms rise in warning a split second before a red laser zings past my cheek, charring the raven hairs that fall about my face. Mud splatters against my forehead when I raise a hand to shield my eyes as the ground erupts less than ten feet ahead. The scent of burnt swamp muck stings my nose as a rain of slimy mud pelts down upon us.
“I’d say we’re getting close,” I whisper over my shoulder to my second-in-command. The young man beside me turns and silently passes on the message to the rest of our squadron.
He inches closer and breathes his questions into my ear. “Where to now?”
Wiping my hands free of the frigid and dank-smelling mud, I dip my head once more to trace my finger along the weathered paper map. A thin black line marks our entry path and continues on toward our target. One of Commander Drakon’s bases lies just in front of us.
We will have to belly crawl through half a foot of putrid slush and God knows what else to reach the wall, but I’ve been through worse.
“We’re heading just north of the fighting.” I point toward the southern gate where all the laser fireworks have converged. Even as I speak, green and red lasers connect in midair and explode back to Earth in a shower of fragmented color. “We need to veer off now. Send your men to the wall. We’ll go around and meet up on the other side.”
With a cutting hand motion, Carleon signals his men to move off. I notice much of his hair has been
plastered to his head, the mud only a few shades lighter than his own short-cropped hair. His eyes are wide and alert as the squelching sounds of boots fade and another volley bursts overhead. “Our enemy is getting antsy.”
I tuck the map into the front of my jacket before zipping it up to my chin with fingers stiff from the cold. It will be a miracle if the map manages to survive the trek through the marshlands that surround the base like a moat.
I don’t like swamps or the creepy crawly things that live in them. Wolves, bears, and mountain lions I can handle, but I don’t do snakes. I’m just praying with winter well on its way, the snakes will have gone to ground. “Drakon’s men know they are surrounded. What would you do?”
“Probably head to the canteen and down as many sodas as I could.” My eyebrow rises with amusement. Carleon shrugs out of his pack. He won’t need it once we’re through the wall. “What? I’ve grown to like the stuff.”
I laugh softly and shake my head. Leave it to him to think with his stomach at a time like this. “Should I leave you behind to have a snack, then?”
“And miss all of the good stuff? Nah. I’ll stick with you.” He raises two laser pistols and checks the power gauge. Full charge. “Besides, I want to see the look on Drakon’s face when he surrenders to you.”
That is what I look forward to most.
When we first received notification that Drakon was back on Earth, Kyan was concerned with how the news would affect my training. To be honest, I think things couldn’t have gotten any worse.
I’m struggling… again.
My boyfriend Eamon thinks that’s why I’m here, leading this mission, but that’s only a half-truth. I need to be here, need to feel the thrill of making a difference. Ever since the City fell to our command over a year ago, I have been trapped within its confines. What I need is space.
No. I need a good fight.
“Eamon’s soldiers did a good job breaching the front gate. It’s almost as if he wants to make this easy on us.” I smile tightly at the men around me. Seven have
placed their lives in my hands. I know three of them well, but the others only by name.
I remove a pair of binoculars from my pants pocket and train them on the wall. It’s hard to get a clear line of sight with the web of lasers flashing brightly in my scope. I tuck them back into my pocket and hope Eamon is in position. “The base is cut off and our men should be in place. Let’s move out.”
“You ready for this?” Carleon asks, grinning from ear to ear. His breath hangs in thick clouds before his mouth. The temperatures are dropping rapidly now that the sun has set.
Great. That’s going to make this trip through the mud that much more pleasant
, I grumble silently to myself.
Since the first time I met Carleon, on the day we infiltrated and brought the City to its knees, he has always been the first to leap into battle. His walnut eyes grow wide with excitement and he bounces on his toes, ready for anything. His enthusiasm during a fight never ceases to amaze me, even after fighting at his side through countless skirmishes.
He anticipates my thoughts better than anyone I know, making him an excellent second-in-command. “Ready when you are.”
Tucking his pistols into the holsters at his hips, he throws himself onto his belly and begins wiggling forward through the mud, using powerful arms to pull himself through the high, sharp-edged weeds that have yet to die off from the frost.
I hate the mud, but not as much as I hate snow and ice. Winter battles are the worst. We stand to lose many lives this year on the plains to blizzards and dagger-tipped ice storms. Why couldn’t Drakon set up camp somewhere warm instead of hole up in this smelly swamp?
Under Kyan’s leadership, we’ve campaigned deep into new sectors of the land. We traveled from the mountains and swept down into the plains, where vicious winds can tear at a person with merciless rage. Long frigid hours spent camping in snowy wastelands is not my idea of a good time.
I miss the mountains. Miss the trees. I miss our home.
I haven’t been back to the caves. Eamon sided with Kyan against me, worried it would dredge up too many sensitive memories. I suppose a part of me agrees with them, but still I long to go back.
I follow only a few inches back from Carleon’s boots, trying my best to stay just far enough back to avoid the mud splatters. My stomach clenches at the smell of moist, decaying vegetation. It clings to my skin, a foul taste upon my tongue. I force myself not to think of what might live in the murky depths of the standing water all around me.
I can hear the men moving behind me and wonder how many of them will give their lives for our cause tonight.
I have to be on top of my game. This siege is a big one.
Word arrived through the rebel spy channels that Drakon was holed up somewhere in the Midwestern quadrant. Our entire camp braced, sure an attack was imminent, but nothing happened.
Confused by Drakon’s lack of initiative, Kyan sent out scouting troops. Several failed to return, probably never will, but one came back with the intel we have been waiting for: Drakon is here and he is looking for me.
Eamon wanted to send me back to the City to be placed under a squadron of our best warriors. Thankfully, Kyan saw this as an opportunity and now here I lie, wallowing in the marsh, as I move inch by agonizing inch toward my enemy.
A year has hardly been enough time to heal the wounds Drakon left behind. He unleashed something inside me that I didn’t know was possible. My powers have been volatile since our encounter atop the Shard. I anger swiftly and cry with annoying ease. I’m a bundle of emotions, none of which I welcome.
Carleon holds up his hand and I refocus, watching as clumps of brown sludge drip from his hand and elbows. A chain fence surrounds the fort, towering nearly ten feet above us. Its links have begun to rust; no doubt the frequent ice storms are increasing the speed of corruption. Spirals of
jagged wire roll across the fence top, convincing me that I do not want to attempt a climb. Less than five feet beyond that stands a block wall twice the height of the fence and thick enough to repel a blast from a spider drone’s cannon.
I’m sure Drakon’s guards think their perimeter to be nearly impregnable. They might have been right if I were not leading this mission.
I can tell by watching the bursts of laser light against the wispy layers of cloud that the battle at the main gate is growing with intensity. Eamon is there fighting alongside my mentor Kyan and childhood friend Toren. They are the bait. While all eyes are focused forward, my job is to sneak in with a handful of men and bang on the back door.
Carleon listens to the muffled chatter in his earpiece and gives me the thumbs-up. My soldiers are in position. They will create a diversion, attacking the snipers along the top of the wall from the cover of the tree line below while Carleon and I slip by unnoticed.
I have only one mission: Find and torture Drakon. Well, perhaps I’m supposed to capture him first, but that’s just a technicality. My fun will come later.
“Are you ready?” he asks.
I blink, realizing that while lost to my thoughts, Carleon has cut a small hole through the fence with his laser gun and doubled back. I can see he is worried about me. He usually is. No doubt, Eamon has added extra pressure on his young shoulders to make sure I come out of this alive. My boyfriend can be quite the force to be reckoned with when he wants to be.
“I’m fine.” I offer my friend a smile that I’m sure in the full light of day would have betrayed my momentary doubt, but if he sees any hesitation, he doesn’t say so.
I raise my hands and concentrate, trying to ignore the way they begin to ache from the chilled water that soaks through. I remove the soggy gloves and toss them aside, waiting for the ripples of electricity to come.
The hairs along my arms rise and I brace myself, rising up onto my knees to create a solid foundation. An invisible blast erupts from the palms of my hands. Wisps of hair flying about my face are blown back as the wall before
me shudders and then implodes from within with a terrible splintering of stone. Carleon doubles over to protect his neck and head with his hands as a rain of fist-sized rubble assails us from above. A few seconds pass before he raises his head, blinking with confusion.
“You didn’t really think I was going to let all of that hit us, did you?” I smirk and lower my hands. A cloud of thick, gray dust hangs in the air before us, making it difficult to see how big the hole is that I carved from the wall. The ground all around us is littered with varying sizes of stone fragments, sharp enough to slice open our hands if we aren’t careful as we move forward.
“You could’ve at least warned me,” he grumbles as he rubs out the blush rising along his neck.
“And miss the look on your face? Not a chance.” I swat damp muck from my pants and then crawl forward, shoving aside thick reeds growing along the perimeter. A low fog hovers over the ground, concealing our final approach. The night air is cold against my skin, but the water squishing up between my fingers still clings to trace amounts of warmth from the day’s sun.
I crouch and duck my head to sneak through the crudely cut hole in the fence and then drop to my stomach to wiggle my way through the thick concrete wall. My ribs protest as I drag myself through the uneven hole and then emerge on the other side, powdered with gray dust.
Once free of the hole, I call back to Carleon to follow. Above his loud grunts, I hear the scraping of his laser gun across the stone. I bend low and reach in as far as I can to grasp it. A series of muttered curses floats my way as I hear fabric tear. “You okay in there?”
I glance back over my shoulder, worried we are running out of time. Someone will surely come soon to check the perimeter. “I’m stuck.”
“Seriously?”
“No, I’m just overly fond of tight spaces.” His voice echoes from within the dark tunnel. “Of course I’m serious!”
“Well, you don’t have to get snippy about it.” I set his gun to the side and raise my hands in front of me, trying to concentrate despite the sound of his grunting and the
explosions to the south. “Just hold on. I’ll get you out.”
“Hey, Illyria?”
“Yeah?” I hesitate, feeling the energy swirl in the palms of my hands.
“Just remember I’m in here. No bringing the whole wall down on top of me, okay?”
I grit my teeth and close my eyes, slowly turning my hands around in a circle to carve out the edges of the hole to accommodate Carleon’s broad shoulders. I hear him breathe a sigh of relief and jerk my hands back a bit too fast. The exit of the tunnel collapses in a pile of rock.
“Dang it,” I grumble as I shake out my hands and grab for the first rock, chucking it aside. By the time I have the space cleared, Carleon is ready to emerge. His hair is dusted gray and his face ashen. “Are you okay?”
“I’m pretty sure I wet myself back there,” he mutters as he pulls his feet free at last and rolls onto his back, gulping great breaths of fresh air.
I stay low beside him, searching the shadows for movement, but see none. “You good to move out? We don’t want to be around when those soldiers arrive.”
Carleon nods and rises, grasping my hand tightly as he darts away from the tunnel. We keep our heads ducked low as we cling to the wall, melding seamlessly with the shadows as we search for a place to hide out until we get a lay of the land.
The compound is larger than I had originally thought, dotted with single-story hut-like buildings. Sparse grass sprouts up from the ground, evidence of training drills in the yard where the earth has been packed down. One long row building across the yard peeks out from being a towering, and slightly off kilter, three-story block building. I can see at least three doors running along its length and assume there are probably more.