EDWARD
It is my funeral tonight.
I kick my heels against the crest of the Walls, sending dust and pebbles down towards the earth. The only fire I see is a girl.
In the distance. At the edge of the lake, as she hurls towards... whatever it is she is looking for, atop that damned steam engine, clutching another man's arm.
I think I loved her.
When I awoke this morning, I found myself lying on an icy stone slab in the mortuary across the river. My brain was foggy. My legs aching like I'd run panicked from an enraged siren.
Cold and alone.
What will that control freak Ajax do when he realises I rose from the dead? The thought makes me chuckle and only the wind whistles back. The only thing keeping me company. And images keep flashing across my brain, rendering me frozen. My mother laughing. The girl with red hair. A young man with my father's eyes. Utter bombardment. I do not know what is real or not real and I certainly don't know what I am meant to feel.
As I sat on that stone, wondering where the hell I was, there was a low hum swirling through my veins. The blood of the shadowteeth, dragging me from the grappling arms of death, as the legends promised. Things have been fuzzy ever since and I don't know what to make of everyone. I especially don't know what to make of myself. I don't even know how I got to this mortuary.
Every nerve in my body screamed at me to find this girl. I kept seeing images of the forest before the southern walls. When I found her in the forest – talking to Ajax, I hid amongst the shadows and the trees and listened. I know, I know. Shitty of me to listen in on a private conversation. But I needed to know more about her and what she wanted.
I soon heard my answer. And I couldn't interfere.
The train's steam catches in the wind, its tendrils swirling and dancing towards me.
She is free and she looks happy. And I'd be a fool to take that away from her.
I stand and watch her go. A smile grows across my face as her spot of red hair disappears into the oblivion. That hum turns into a percussive boom that rattles through my veins and I take it all in one last time before I climb down the ladder, heading towards the bunker, towards the Wilderness, too. I do not know where I am going, either. But it doesn't matter. I think I was loved by that girl.
I wonder if we will meet, she and I.
And so I board the next train and hasten across the earth, too, to whatever end.
YOU ARE READING
After the Walls
Fantasy[Book 3 of the Within the Walls Trilogy] Who is Elle Fallon? Is she a selfless hero? Or is she a girl driven to madness trying to protect the ones she loves? Months have passed since the battle beyond the walls and rumour has it she has chosen to...
