Squaring the Earth by K. T. Steele EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
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- Author: K. T. Steele
- Language: English
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Raid
The Toxic Garden of Iocaste Proper’s sprawling Arboretum was filled to the brim with poisonous plants. These fairly benign toxic radials could be found in any of the wild back bowls of Iocaste’s mountain ranges, but they were a rare sight here in the middle of the city. In spring and summer, the Garden would have been packed to the brim with day-trippers here to see the flowers in all their brilliant colors and fractal symmetry. This fall day found it nearly deserted, the most spectacular plants having lost their blooms and gone dormant as the weather grew colder.
Up ahead, a pair of unSkilled girls were daring each other to touch the death poinsettia, one of the few flowers that bloomed this time of year. Its hazardously bright red and gold bracts warned away herbivores even as the spiraling fractal geometry of its leaves and petals drew in pollinators and mesmerized those who looked at it. “Bad idea,” Raid said out loud as the girls upped the ante from touching the toxic flower to licking it. They both jumped, looking at him with wide eyes, then dashed away giggling behind their hands. Mordred said in thoughtspeak. Raid answered. He hadn’t felt Mordred arrive and even now as he looked with his Skills, couldn’t get a sense of him. Mordred had always had a stronger Skillset than Raid, but not by a lot. Raid had never been able to see through Mordred’s sight shields, but he’d always been able to feel his creche brother’s psychic presence. Now he heard nothing but Mordred’s voice. It felt like dealing with a high aught, and that put Raid on edge. Mordred replied, unaware of Raid’s disquiet.
Raid demanded, his unease making his voice sharp. Mordred’s sight shield expanded to encompass Raid, allowing them to see each other while making them invisible to the unSkilled and any Skilled with a lower aught rank than Mordred. Both of them had been born to House of Carnage and bore the distinctive stamp of their House. The pale skin, black hair, and a similar set to their facial features. They also had blood-red eyes. Like the brilliant colors of the toxic radials, the jewel-bright irises of the Skilled Houses were a warning that their members should not be trifled with. At this moment, Mordred looked exhausted, and distress colored his psychic scent. Raid asked, all other concerns wiped away in the face of Mordred appearing so worn.
he answered dully. <She… What?> Raid couldn’t wrap his head around that statement. <Why? How many?> The enormity of that tilted the world on its axis and for a moment Raid thought he would be pitched into the sky. <Why?> The word came out barely a whisper in his mind. It took a moment before Raid could form words. Culling had always been practiced by the Skilled Houses. There would always be those who posed a significant threat to themselves or those around them and were culled before they could cause damage – or worse damage in some cases. It was only in the last decade that Katio, Matriarch of House of Carnage, had started culling anyone she deemed too weak. The first one to die to her new ideal had been their creche brother Nico.
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