Total pages in book: 210
Estimated words: 200837 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1004(@200wpm)___ 803(@250wpm)___ 669(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 200837 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1004(@200wpm)___ 803(@250wpm)___ 669(@300wpm)
I head towards the exit, pushing my way through a thick crowd of people waiting in a haphazard line for something at a booth.
Tyse is calling my name again. “Clara! Stop!”
I don’t stop. I push past a final crowd and make a dash for the exit. Then I am running under the great arches—and this is what makes me halt, turn, and look up.
Because I know this archway.
When I last saw it, there was a massive black door covering the opening, but this is it. This is the door to the God’s Tower. The very one I walked through.
My eyes slowly crawl up the building, taking in all the familiar details. Then I look around and realize I’m standing on the God’s Tower stage, except the smooth, polished stone floor that I remember is now cracked, and crumbling, and looking very ancient.
Then I see the city. I saw it last night, but it was dark, and lit up, and nothing like it looks right now.
I’m so stunned, my mouth drops open. I haven’t moved. I’m standing in the center of the archway and people are flowing past me like I’m a rock in a river. But then they start pushing me. Snarling at me.
“Get out of the way.”
“Move along!”
Then there is a hand on my arm. And when I look up, those unnaturally lit-up blue eyes are looking back at me. He doesn’t say anything, just sighs and pulls me over to the right, getting me out of the flood of people.
I am taken to a spot that I am very familiar with because this was where I stood each and every time I was on this stage watching a friend walk through that same door I just came out of.
The hope dies. Instantly. There is no going back. There is no saving my old life.
I just walked through the tower god’s door.
That was my plan, wasn’t it?
And this place, this city—it’s not my Tau City.
“Here. Sit.” Tyse is pointing to a step. Which is the exact same step the Matrons stood on during the Extraction last night.
I don’t sit. Instead I take a look around. A good look around. From ten stories up I could tell it was some kind of ruin, but from the ground I see it for what it really is. The Maiden Tower—what’s left of it, anyway—is directly on my right. Most of the tower is gone. There’s no roof. But the archways above the doors are familiar. I look up, counting the floors. My floor is missing. Just sky. But that’s where I lived. Hundreds of years ago, apparently.
I look back down, my gaze wandering over to the bridge that spans the canal—which is not filled with cyan-blue water, but something much darker—and ending at the Extraction Tower on my left. Finn’s tower. Or rather, where it would’ve been. Because this one is just a foundation.
Finally, I look straight down the canal. The banks used to be sandy, and pretty, and lined with sandstone boulders with little waterfalls spilling over them in some places. But these banks are made of some building material I can’t even name. It looks unnatural and cold. Nothing but smooth, sharp edges.
Just like the new towers that have replaced the white conical ones with sun-bleached blue domes that I remember. They are tall—very, very tall. Much taller than anything from my Tau City. And they look like spikes. So many of them, all clustered together. So close I get a feeling of claustrophobia just looking at them. Some of them are made of glass and glimmer in the dull sunlight like mirrors. Others are made of that same smooth material acting as banks on the canal. I can count at least a dozen bridges, but they are not the simple ones my feet used to travel across. There are two-wheeled machines I’ve never seen before with people on them, going every which way.
And the noise. It’s distant from here. Beyond what used to be the Extraction and Maiden Districts and well into what used to be the Canal District where everyone in up-city used to shop. So the noises of this city, from where I’m standing, are a bit muffled. But even from here I can tell that there is nothing calm about it. It’s a frantic clamor of commotion.
“Are you OK?”
I don’t answer him. Mostly because I’m not OK, but also I don’t owe him an answer. He’s no one to me. He’s not even nice. Back in my old life I would not have looked twice at a man like Tyse. Even if we were from the same world, we would not be from the same world.
“Look, I don’t know what’s going on with you, but just take a seat. Relax. Give yourself a minute.”
I don’t have many options—none, really—so I lower myself down onto the step.