Free Marcii (The Dreadhunt Trilogy Book 1) by Ross Turner Page B

woman warned, as if her safety mattered not in the slightest.
    She was only concerned for Marcii.
    Outside the skies only darkened further and the rain continued its ceaseless descent, hammering against the roof above them until it became almost deafening. Marcii glanced up fearfully, though it was not the weather that frightened her so, but instead a threat altogether less natural and more prominent.
    “I wanted to come.” Marcii insisted. “I needed to make sure you were okay.”
    Malorie smiled ruefully and her deep violet eyes were laced with sorrow, but she said not another word of it.
    She glanced about her home, or what was left of it, in dismay.
    “I tried to hide them…” She began then, stooping to retrieve a chair that had been overturned. She righted it and sank wearily into its embrace.
    Marcii did the same, taking a seat opposite Malorie and gazing across the overturned table at her deeply lined face.
    “My cats…” Malorie clarified. “I hid them for a few days, but eventually they became too upset being cooped up…”
    Marcii nodded sorrowfully, but she did not speak.
    “They didn’t understand…” Malorie continued. “They didn’t know…”
    “It wasn’t your fault…” Marcii attempted. “Tyran’s a monster…”
    Hard as she could try, Marcii knew it would be impossible to lessen Malorie’s grief. Nonetheless, she so desperately wanted to help her, for she felt a strange and indescribable connection to this woman whom had, for some reason, become such a central pillar in her life.
    “Yes…” Malorie agreed, but then she paused, though there was still unspoken breath in her lungs.
    There was more to that statement, and Marcii knew it.
    She waited, her own breath clutched tightly, hardly even daring to move.
    Finally, after much deliberation it seemed, Malorie continued.
    “But the people don’t see that…” She eventually sighed, the very sound of it weary and burdened. “He has blinded them. He has given them a common enemy. And he has done it so convincingly that I don’t know if they will ever see through it…”
    “I see through it.” Marcii replied adamantly. “I won’t ever let his words fool me.”
    Her statement was not an opinion, but instead fact, and Malorie knew it.
    The mysterious woman, whose age was a secret only she and time itself knew, smiled affectionately.
    Hard as she tried though, she could not hide the pain behind those violet eyes, pooling with wisdom and truths unknown.
    “I know.” She agreed kindly. “But you are unique, Marcii Dougherty.” Malorie pressed on. “Others do not see the world in the way you do. So long as Tyran rules them, they will always be blinded, and I fear that there is still much worse to come…”

Chapter Thirteen
     
     
                  The following morning, only half an hour or so after sunrise, Marcii stood amongst the heaving crowds in the square, in the very centre of Newmarket.
    Although the elements that daybreak were ferocious, her mind was not on the fierce wind that harassed her.
    Nor was it upon the freezing, icy rain that refused to relent as it lashed down.
    No. Instead, as Marcii’s gaze drilled across the square, her mind was upon Tyran, and how she so deeply mistrusted the self-proclaimed Mayor.
    Malorie’s words the previous day had served only to heighten Marcii’s disgust for the terrible man. But, had she known how deeply her loathing for him would run by the end of even just that miserable day, she would have set herself upon him there and then.
    “My people!” Tyran boomed across the tightly packed square, beginning his speech in the usual fashion, and every time it set Marcii’s teeth on edge.
    It was as if he thought he owned them.
    They were not for sale, but clearly he thought he was buying them, just as he was buying their trust.
    However, as she glanced around, Marcii was repulsed by what she saw. Painted across the faces of her fellow townsfolk, clear as day, was a