The Sowing (The Torch Keeper) Read Free Page A

streamers of red and orange that dance behind me, content that by morning they will finally whither into oblivion.

two
    “Rough night, Spark?”
    “Just five more minutes,” I groan. It seems like only seconds ago that I activated my black market bio-shroud—which I keep hidden in the heel of my boot to cloak my body’s heat signature—crawled under the security fence, and crept into my bunk at the trainee outpost.
    Of course, that was all after rappelling hundreds of feet down the funnel-shaped desert canyon and crawling through one of the camouflaged openings that are embedded in the craggy walls, hiding the base from view.
    How long was I out for?
    There’s a firm tug on my arm and I wince when I pull it free. The aches of my recent skirmish pulsate through to the marrow.
    “What’s going on?” I croak, through the dry desert of my throat. Rubbing my eyes, I gradually focus, the first slivers of daylight slicing through my knuckles. Arrah’s face fades into view like a disembodied specter.
    “We’ve got visitors.”
    The lines on her smooth caramel face snuff out my drowsiness. I jolt up and swing my bare feet from the bunk to the ice-cold floor. “Who? When?”
    She nudges her chin toward the window where our three other bunkmates—Dahlia, Leander, and Rodrigo—are clumped, peering outside.
    My fellow Imposer trainees. Previous Recruits, winners of the past few seasons of the Trials. Arrah is the most recent inductee before me. The five of us are housed and trained together, with the logic being that the more experienced grunts in the group will pass their knowledge on to the others. Each year the oldest—in this case Dahlia, who’s First Tier and practically a full-fledged Imposer—graduates to full Imposer status, leaving a vacant spot for the winning Recruit from that year’s Trials.
    “Convoy,” grumbles Leander, who’s second in line of succession after Dahlia. He keeps his massive, freckled back to me. “Pulled in ’bout an hour ago.” He’s built like a series of pale cinder blocks, wedged together into the shape of a mountain.
    Dahlia wipes a swatch of window with a meaty palm and presses the expanse of her forehead against it. “All the way from the Citadel, by the looks of it.”
    My nails dig into the bed frame. If they’ve sent in troops from the Parish, that can only mean they suspect …
    “Any idea why?” I coat my words in idle curiosity, hoping she won’t notice.
    Rodrigo yawns and drops to the floor and into a series of push-ups. One of his obsidian eyes winks at me. “Probably just an envoy … sent to … escort us back … to the Parish … in style … ” He spits out each word out with the flex of his lean, tan muscles, which thrust his arms and chest toward and away from the floor with the fluidity of a well-oiled piston.
    “That’s it!” Dahlia snorts, giving Leander a wink and punching the mounds of his arm.
    He snickers as if she’s merely tickled him and swallows her hand with his. “We’re the elite that can’t be beat!”
    Then they’re roughhousing like Canid pups.
    I suppress a sneer. This is all a game to them. They’re only a few years older than me, but I can already see that the Establishment has branded its mark into their souls. I wonder which one of their loved ones they were forced to send to their deaths in order to get here.
    I wonder if they even care anymore.
    When I first arrived here, I thought for sure Dahlia Bledsoe and I would reconnect. After all, our families used to be close back in the Parish. Her mother even acted as a surrogate parent for my brother Cole and me after Mom and Dad passed—before being killed by our so-called Honorable Prefect, Cassius Thorn, all for daring to care about us.
    So I could understand Dahlia’s coldness and contempt and accept the blame, under normal circumstances. Her mother had been her only living family member, and she was dead now because of her involvement with me. Fine. I get that. But