“To the hospital,” he said. “I did my best, Credo, but I had to wait until the Warrior-Guilder was out of sight. Kalina fought so hard, but they struggled and she fell into the river.… Aven assumed she was dead, Credo, but she must have held her breath and dragged herself all the way to the bank.”
As if all the air had been sucked from around me, my whole body tensed up. Moments passed in limbo, then I found my hands gripping the front of Garan’s rough tunic, my face a handspan from his. “Is she…” I couldn’t go on, just stood there holding him up like a schoolyard bully, unable to even ask, choked by hope.
Hadrea finished for me. “Are you saying Kalina is alive?”
Garan nodded, still looking terrified. I dropped him, shaking.
“Yes, but she’s not in good shape, Credo. I grew up in Green Bend, by the river. I know what to do when someone’s taken a lot of water—I got it out from her lungs, but her stomach … I’m no physic. The knife didn’t land where it was meant to, but it was still a bad wound. I bandaged her up as best I could to hold it all together. I didn’t dare ask anyone for help. I dragged her to the army in a body sling, and slipped in with the rest of the wounded. But I hid her tattoos and didn’t tell the physics who she was, because I thought Aven might find out.”
Kalina, I thought. And I ran.
The dark was no obstacle, not to me. Years of pacing had taught me the streets of the upper city; it mattered not that most of the lights had been out for weeks to conserve oil. The other two followed me as I raced through the city in a blur, fighting down the bursts of hope that both propelled and terrified me. I wanted to believe; honor-down, I had never wanted anything so badly.
It might have been midday, for all the activity in the hospital. Garan took the lead once we burst into the crowded hive of the main hall, and led us through the bustle. “Where is she?” I demanded, not caring how manic I sounded.
“Through here,” he said, but I’d already seen her.
A tiny, pitiful figure on a bed; I’d have known her anywhere, even though part of me registered how alien she looked, how wrong, lying there so straight instead of curled up like a kitsa, the way she usually slept. Her hair was splayed over the pillow, a dark halo around a carving of a face. I knelt beside her.
“Lini,” I whispered. I had to hold my hand in front of her nose to confirm she still breathed. That tiny puff of warm air was the best thing I’d ever felt.
“The physics already operated,” Garan said, hovering behind. “But they don’t know … there was so much damage.”
“Who was the physic?”
Garan pointed him out; I recognized him as the physic who I’d helped with an injured soldier on the walls, weeks ago. He recognized me, too, and raised an eyebrow when he learned the identity of his patient. “It’s a bad injury,” he told me, pinching his nose. “We’ve repaired what we can, but it’s going to be a waiting exercise now, I’m afraid, Credo.”
Hadrea rested her chin on my shoulder, arms slipping around me. “We’ll be here when she wakes up,” she said, and I heard calm, not fear, in her voice.
“Yeah,” I said. “Yeah, we will.”
The physic shook his head, putting a hand on my shoulder. “I don’t want you to hope unnecessarily, Credo,” he said. “It will take real strength, a fighting spirit, and a determined body, to recover from this. You should know she probably won’t wake up.”
I sat beside Hadrea, feeling the warmth of her body against mine. I found myself smiling. “The hell she won’t,” I said. “She’s the strongest person I know.”
And we settled in together by the bed, to wait for my sister to come back to us.
About the Author
A black belt in jujitsu, SAM HAWKE lives with her husband and children in Australia. This is her first novel.
Visit her online at Samhawkewrites.com, or sign up for email updates here.
Twitter: @samhawkewrites
www.facebook.com/samhawkewrites
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Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Laceleaf
1. Jovan
Zarnika
2. Kalina
Maidenbane
3. Jovan
Bluehood
4. Kalina
Hazelnode
5. Jovan
Clouddust
6. Kalina
Lendulos
7. Jovan
Bitterseed
8. Kalina
Praconis/slumberweed
9. Jovan
Rabutin
10. Kalina
Art’s plainsrose
11. Jovan
Esto’s revenge
12. Kalina
Manita fungus
13. Jovan
Eel brain
14. Kalina
Feverhead
15. Jovan
Stingbark
16. Kalina
Lockwort
17. Jovan
Salgar (red death)
18. Kalina
Okubane
19. Jovan
Bloodroot
20. Kalina
Geraslin ink
21. Jovan
Atrapis
22. Kalina
Dumbcane
23. Jovan
Moonblossom
24. Kalina
Poison rookgrass
25. Jovan
Darpar
26. Kalina
False goaberry
27. Jovan
Petra venom
28. Kalina
Graybore
29. Jovan
Blisterbush
30. Kalina
Beetle-eye
31. Jovan
Scatterburr
32. Jovan
Traitor’s curse
33. Jovan
Epilogue: Jovan
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
CITY OF LIES
Copyright © 2018 by Sam Hawke
All rights reserved.
Cover art by Greg Ruth
Cover design by Jamie Stafford-Hill
A Tor Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates
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New York, NY 10010
Tor® is a registered trademark of Macmillan Publishing Group, LLC.
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-1-250-30668-5 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-0-7653-9689-1 (trade paperback)
ISBN 978-0-7653-9691-4 (ebook)
eISBN 9780765396914
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First Edition: July 2018