The Eye of God (The Fall of Erelith) Read Free

together. Terin kicked up and out with his right foot. His ankle throbbed from the impact of his foot against the man’s chest, and the Citizen let out a startled cry.
    With his muscles straining, Terin threw the pale-haired man over his head. The Citizen hit the ground with a thud. Rolling to his feet, Terin scrambled for the end of the hall. The doors lining the way were closed, and a great window fashioned of many square panes of thin strips of iron stretched from the floor to the ceiling.
    Without slowing, he twisted around and crashed through it. The window shattered, and shards of glass and metal bit at his shoulder. The ground he expected on the other side wasn’t there.
    Terin fell.
     
    ~*~
     
    Invisible hands jerked Terin to a halt, leaving him to dangle upside down staring at the lights of Lower Erelith City far below. The Speech holding him place stabbed at his ears and thundered through his skull. With each breath, the grip tightened until he couldn’t even manage a wheeze.
    “Bring him up,” a man’s voice called from above.
    “Is it really worth the effort?” a woman asked. Someone snickered. “Let him fall. No one will care.”
    Laughter rang out. Voice light with amusement, a man replied, “Are you going to be the one to retrieve the collar, then, mistress? That’s a gold collar he wears. I won’t be at fault if he dies in the Arena for his crimes.”
    “I’m sure its owner will understand,” the woman grumbled. “I can always send down one of my slaves if needed.”
    Terin struggled to draw a breath to Speak and free himself—even if it meant plummeting the hundreds of feet to the ground below. Not even the flash of heat from the collar quelled his desperation as his lungs ached with the need for air. His vision dimmed until the lights below were nothing more than faint specks in the darkness.
    His right hand tingled and a chill spread up his arm. The Speech holding him shattered and he gasped in a gulp of cool night air. He didn’t drop far before several hands grabbed ahold of his legs.
    Instead of falling to Lower Erelith City, Terin’s face slammed into the cliff. Stones pierced his cheek, gouged at his stomach, and scraped his arms and knees. The little air he’d managed to gasp in rushed out of his lungs.
    “He broke my window. The Arena is too good for him,” the woman said with a sniff.
    Terin was dragged through the broken window, the shards of glass tearing through his side and arms. The heat of his own blood didn’t compare with the surge of pain radiating from his throat.
    The collar knew; it knew he’d failed, and punished him for it.
    He was thrown down to the hall’s polished stone and a boot cracked against his ribs. “Who is your master?”
    Terin bit his lip. The answer was on the tip of his tongue, and he swallowed back the need to obey the Citizen. It didn’t matter what Terin said; if he bowed to the Citizen’s will, the collar would punish him for defying his master, like it punished him for his failure to escape without getting caught.
    “Check his collar,” the man growled.
    It wouldn’t do them any good, but Terin didn’t say anything. He suffered through the fingers digging at his neck and the collar in silence. Nails tore his skin in the effort to get beneath the ring around his throat.
    A man Spoke in a whisper. Terin tried to blink away the darkness, but he could barely make out the tiles of the hallway floor, and they were shrouded in gray.
    “It isn’t marked, sir.”
    “What do you mean? All collars are marked,” the woman said.
    “I’d turn him over to the military right away, sir. Only a few are allowed by the Emperor to have unmarked collars, and if he’s one of the Emperor’s slaves, it’ll be our heads if we don’t return him,” the Speaker replied.
    “Just my luck. Summon the guards, then. If he is the Emperor’s slave, he can be retrieved from the Arena.”
    The boot cracked against Terin’s rib again, and the pain of it