Radiant: Towers Trilogy Book One Read Online Free Page A

murmured, grabbing the kaleidoscope and returning her heels to the table’s edge. “I just can’t decide: are you trying to ruin your father’s business, or just conning a young girl out of her dinner?”
    “My father,” Brend began, his expression strained.
    “His father,” Wen interjected, “says to offer something halfway decent or he’s disowned.”
    Xhea grinned. “Little late,” she told Wen, but passed the message along. Brend’s next two offers were similarly ridiculous.
    “Seven hundred for the calculator,” Wen said as his son hemmed and hawed, saying something about falling market interest in certain items, which Xhea ignored. “Three hundred for the rest.”
    “Raw?”
    “Chip-spelled,” Wen countered. At her frown, he sighed dramatically and added, “And the kaleidoscope.”
    Xhea grinned. “Deal.”
    Brend’s face darkened as Xhea conveyed the details of the bargain made without his participation. She suppressed a sigh; from his expression, it would be a few weeks before she could return with more items—and a few more years before he truly got used to dealing with her. Still, what choice did he have? She was the only conduit for his father’s expertise.
    Then again, years spent working with Wen hadn’t made him like her, either. They only truly began to talk after his death and the loneliness that came with haunting. It was easier to condescend to her company when she was the only one who knew he was there.

By the time Xhea emerged from the warehouse, payment chip in hand, afternoon had begun its surrender into evening. Curse Brend anyway , she thought, dithering over their deal and letting time slip away. Curse her for not noticing. Even she didn’t dare be caught in the ruins when night fell.
    Muttering beneath her breath, Xhea hurried back toward the Lower City.
    Nearly as bad, she could feel a tightness across her forehead—discomfort that heralded the onset of a magic-induced headache. She could barely believe her payment was almost gone; nearly five hundred renai burned through in a single afternoon. She could remember when that much would have lasted days, the world bright with color and the pressure of the darkness within her held at bay.
    She increased her pace to a light jog, the ghost trailing behind her like a strange banner.
    From behind her came a voice: “I’m . . . dead?”
    Oh, sweetness , Xhea thought. Not again .
    “That’s right,” she said. She wouldn’t make it back the way she’d come, she realized with a glance at the darkening sky; there wasn’t time. She considered her options. She could take the highway overpass back to the core, avoiding the chaos on the ground, or she could divert, heading at an angle to the Lower City where she might connect with the subway line. Subway, she decided. Becoming stranded on the ruin of the elevated roadway after nightfall was a disaster beyond contemplation, and she disliked heights at the best of times.
    “And the man,” the ghost continued. “The one who could see me. He was dead too?”
    “Right again.”
    “But where was his . . . his . . .” She gave up trying to find a suitable word and just tugged in frustration at the line of energy joining them.
    “His tether? It’s there—he’s just bound to the whole warehouse.” No such thing as an untethered ghost, and praise be for small mercies.
    Above, the Towers glittered like jewels cast across darkening velvet, the shimmering veils of magic that surrounded them far brighter than the emerging stars. Xhea pushed herself into a run, trusting experience to keep her from turning an ankle on the rough roadway. These streets were deserted, but even closer to the core, in the buildings on the edge of the ruins where few Lower City dwellers dared live, the inhabitants would be all safely inside, doors locked and barred, curtains drawn against night’s fall. Night—and the things that walked the streets when darkness came.
    No , she thought, not just things .