Free The Onyx Vial (Shadows of The Nine Book 1) by Alexis Lampley

expressions of distaste.
    “No.”
    “Definitely not.”
    Dilyn shrugged. “You both disappeared. Thought we ought to check on you.” He winked at Ariana.
    Her stomach turned. “Ugh. There's no checking needed.” She glared at Hunter. “He's not my type.”
    Hunter raised a brow. “Same,” he said.
    The landing suddenly felt small and crowded. “And we're done here,” she said, gesturing toward the stairs. “Please go away.”
    Hunter looked at her like she was a disappointment.
    He had no right to look at her like that. She felt the chill shudder through her a moment before Dilyn shivered.
    “Hunter,” he said cautiously, “she's frayed. I'd do as she asks. Quickly.”
    “Gladly,” he said, his eyes still on her. “Thanks for your help ,” he added.
    “Not that you even asked for it,” she retorted, planting her hands on her hips.
    Lawks, she wanted to slap that look off his face.
    Instead, she stayed put as he left, taking solace in the fact that his forty thousand Scales were still in her possession.

Chapter 7
     
    Dawn had just begun to paint its watercolors across the sky when Ariana snuck out of her room, careful not to wake Tehya as she closed the door. She wanted to be out of the house before the gates opened and her mother awoke. She had changed into a sea-blue dress she'd been meaning to get back from Tehya anyway, and looked less peculiar than she had in her lounge clothes the night before. With her satchel slung over her shoulder, she headed downstairs.
    When she saw the wide-open door of the room Dilyn and Perry usually shared, she paused on the landing and listened hard. No one seemed to be awake. She peeked inside. Hunter was fast asleep on the spare bed closest to the window. His bag was stuffed beneath it.
    With a glance over her shoulder to be sure all was clear, she slipped through the doorway. Dilyn snored softly as she passed him. Perry's foot stuck out from the covers on his bed, his face buried under a pillow.
    She stopped at Hunter's bedside. He couldn't read the book without her help. If he was too stubborn to let her help him, she'd have to take charge. What harm could she really do? She'd take the book to Pabl's, start translating it, and have it back this afternoon. It was absolutely useless to him if he couldn't get it translated.
    Pulling Hunter's damaged tin from her satchel, she knelt beside the bed. If it made him mad that she borrowed his book without permission, he couldn't stay mad long. Not when she returned the Scales he thought he'd lost.
    She lifted the flap of the bag and peered inside, trying not to feel guilty. Really, she was doing him a favor. And, in a way, she was paying him for it. Granted, it was with his Scales.
    She stuck the tin in place of the book,which she tucked safely away in her satchel. Then she left the room and ducked quietly out of the house.
    It was a little disconcerting to be out in the city this early. But it wasn't as scary as it was at night. There was already a lot of activity. The first rays of sun brushed themselves on the white stone and alighted on the riot of multicolored awnings. Merchants called out to one another as they set up their stalls, brimming with bright colors, crammed into the street. Ahead, a plump, frazzled-looking woman threw open the wooden panels of her second-level window. She beat a deep blue woven rug against the oversized face of King Fyrenn plastered on the wall below her. Soft specks of dirt spiraled to the ground. Ariana skirted the impromptu shower, darted through a short alley, and emerged on Page Street.
    It was quieter here — the colors more subdued. The atmosphere more like morning. The gentle scent of flour floated along the cool air, twirled up her nose, and tingled the underside of her tongue. She stopped in front of a fading midnight-blue building.
    Cracks branched from its foundation and stretched along the only painted stone exterior in Eastridge. Above the crumbling doorway, a rusty pole