Theta Read Online Free Page B

sight of
Leandra, my servant and longtime classmate from the forest where
we’d both been raised.
    Was Niko warning me about Lantos’ fate
because he thought I’d tell Lantos? Was it a warning for me to
behave?
    Or … did Niko give me false information
because he suspected what Leandra was – the head of a spy network
created by the priests who knew my fate? Leandra was my connection
to Theodocia, the leader of the insurgency. If Niko or Cleon ever
found that out, I’d be on the wall where Cecelia was now, and
Leandra would probably be dead.
    The beautiful blonde girl my age was
nibbling on the afternoon snacks she had placed on the table near
the bay window in my room. If anyone would know what Niko was up
to, it was Leandra, who was trained in human intelligence.
    My eyes went from her to the tall, wide wall
opposite the door. Despair unfurled within me, along with a sense
of being completely overwhelmed. On the wall, I’d handwritten the
names of everyone I murdered the night Cleon ordered me to destroy
a five block radius in DC. The area was completely filled with
writing, and I’d started adding the names to the adjacent wall as
well.
    It was a reminder of what I could be, of my
power, of those who suffered the moment I stopped trying to fight
the fate Cleon wanted for me. The names were the first things I saw
in the morning and the last before I fell asleep. They watched me
slumber each night, and I imagined the spirits of those I’d killed
hovering around me.
    I had nightmares every night, and it was
rare when I didn’t fall asleep crying.
    My power had so much potential to do good –
and evil. The memorial had become my motivation to resist Cleon’s
directives and subdue the depths of my magic, so I never unleashed
the flood that could finish off what the gods started when the Holy
Wars began five years ago.
    Dropping my gaze to the floor, I swallowed
hard and refocused on what I needed to talk to my only remaining
friend about. “Hey, Leandra. Something weird …”
    Dizziness washed over me. My feet grew hot,
and the air around me sizzled with the scents of charred metal and
burning flesh. The brilliant white daylight pouring into my room
melted away, replaced by the dark night sky. I was somewhere else
completely. The ground beneath my feet was stone and resembled the
area atop the walls I’d seen once before.
    Heat rolled over me and stung the inside of
my nose. I covered my nose and mouth and blinked ash out of my
eyelashes, unable to understand what was happening. Turning to face
the source of heat and light, I shielded my eyes and stepped
forward.
    DC was on fire. Every last bit of it burned,
and gaping holes punctuated the cityscape where there was no fire.
The walls on which I stood were black, with much of them crumbled.
I took in the destruction, awed by its scope, and began searching
the ribbons for signs of life.
    There were none. The fire gave off three
ribbons and everything else two, as if the entirety of the
population had been destroyed, along with the buildings.
    This can’t be real. I turned away, towards the darkness stretching
outside the walls of DC as far as I could see. Smoke gagged me, and
I moved towards the outer edge of the wall. My attention followed
the twisting smoke towards the sky.
    No moon.
    No stars.
    The skies were filled with nothingness I’d
seen once before in my life, in a vision of my past.
    “ What’s happening?” I asked
aloud, praying someone would answer.
    No one was left alive to respond. I turned
all the way around again, and then I froze when I saw someone else
before me.
    Adonis. His form was ghostly, faint and
varying shades of black, white and gray. He stood a meter from me,
not moving, watching with sadness in his gaze.
    Brilliant light spread across the distant
horizon, bright enough to draw my gaze. Orange flames arced into
the sky from the earth and began to spread, devouring everything in
their paths as they raced towards the city. Behind it,