Free A World of Ash: The Territory 3 by Justin Woolley Page A

made of steel, so Lynn could hear nothing beyond the confines of her room. Alone in this place she could have been anywhere in the world. She could have been back in Pitt, and in truth she wished she was, away from this inescapable situation. The guards who had dragged her here had made it perfectly clear that the next time she left her cell it would be to see the High Priestess, who would surely decree her almost immediate execution for high treason. As much as she tried to occupy her mind with thoughts of other things she realized quickly enough that she didn’t have anything happy to focus on. All her family was dead and she had no idea what had happened to Squid and Nim. They were probably dead too. All she had left was the fiery passion she’d felt as the Holy Order had forced her off that dirigible. She had to find a way to get out of here and prove the Administrator’s link to her father’s death, to bring the people of the slums inside the walls and to put an end to the oppressive rule of High Priestess Patricia and her red-cloaked army. Unfortunately, as she looked around at her current situation, she had no idea how to accomplish even a small part of that.
    Lynn was being kept in a section of the cathedral she had never seen before. It was an odd thing, she thought, for there to be prison cells beneath a church. But she knew what sort of church she was dealing with – one that kept people and knowledge locked away to maintain their comfortable status quo, just as they kept everyone in the Central Territory locked away behind the ghoul-proof fence, locked away from the truth of what was out there.
    The hollow scraping of a key in the heavy steel door echoed off the cell walls. There was no knock. The click of the lock was the only warning Lynn got before the door swung outward and she saw a clergyman, his red cloak flowing down from his shoulders. Lynn stood hurriedly. They had come for her but she would not be led out looking afraid.
    The clergyman that entered the room was tall and even in the dim light of the cell Lynn could see his uniform was more decorated than usual. A red lanyard was wrapped around his right shoulder and draped down over the front of his stiff white shirt. Elaborate emblems of gold, bursting rays of light above an open book, were pinned on both sides of his collar, and medals were positioned on the left side of his chest, just above his breast pocket. Gold buttons Lynn had never before seen on a Holy Order uniform gleamed down his front and even his red cloak was held in place with thick wooden shoulder boards rimmed with gold tassels. Despite his ornate uniform, which Lynn thought must have indicated an extraordinarily high rank, Lynn’s eyes were drawn to his face and hair. His skin was the palest she had ever seen and his hair was so white it would almost be translucent in the sunlight. He didn’t look like someone born to withstand the harsh Territory sun. He fixed her with his light blue eyes.
    “Do you know who I am?” he said.
    Lynn shook her head. “No,” she said. “Should I?”
    “My name is Clergy-General Hillsly Provost. I am Commander of the Holy Order in service to High Priestess Patricia and the Church of Glorious God the Redeemer.”
    “Wow, I must be more important than I thought if the High Priestess is sending the Commander of the entire Holy Order to collect me,” Lynn said. She made it sound as sarcastic as she could but in truth that was exactly how she felt. Why on the Ancestors’ red earth was the general of the Holy Order the one to take her to the High Priestess? Surely that was a job for a clergyman ranked far below him.
    “Actually,” the general said, “High Priestess Patricia doesn’t know I’m here.”
    Lynn blinked. “What do you mean? You aren’t here to take me to her?”
    The general shook his head. “No,” he said. “I’m here to take you somewhere else.”
    “Does she prefer not to know where you kill the prisoners? Is that