City of Whispers Read online

  City of Whispers

  The Famine Cycle: Book One

  J.D.L. Rosell

  Contents

  Prequel to the Famine Cycle

  Map

  Prologue

  1. Feast & Famine

  2. Changing Winds

  3. Chance Encounters

  4. Finch in the Rain

  5. Temple’s Heart

  6. Eyes in the Dark

  7. Ascension

  Interlude I

  8. The Augur

  9. With Every Good Turn

  10. Marks

  11. Seekers

  12. Beyond the Claw

  13. The Archon

  14. Truth’s Cost

  15. Rude Awakening

  16. The Gathering

  17. The Visage of the Wyvern

  Interlude II

  18. The Whisper Finch

  19. Spinning

  20. The Demos Council

  21. Pyrkin

  22. Wardens

  23. Loyalty

  24. On Trial

  25. Unmasked

  26. Famine

  27. Attuned

  Before you go…

  Don’t Miss Out…

  Books by J.D.L. Rosell

  The Phantom Heist

  Realm of Ashes

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Secret Seller, the prequel novella to The Famine Cycle, is available for free. Sign up here for your free copy.

  A nobleman's murder. A secret buried in her past. An ancient power ascending…

  Airene, a hunter of whispers and merchant of rumors, is no stranger to scandal and isn't afraid to get into a scrap.

  But when a nobleman is killed, Airene is pushed to her limits in pursuit of the murderer — and the secret that will change her world forever...

  Get your free copy of Secret Seller today!

  Prologue

  The ancestors murmured assent as Azhi took another step forward. He leaned his slight frame into the desert gale, listening for the whispers as wind howled in his ears and the sands of the Wumofu battered against his veil.

  He took another step and again heard the ancestors' whispers. It paid to be careful in the storm, particularly for a twelve-year-old boy who had never trained as a Drifter.

  Especially while he walked the Evershifting Path on a quest he'd stolen from another.

  Ignoring his souring stomach, Azhi concentrated on putting one foot before the other. The elders said the ancestors' bones were buried deep beneath, anchoring them to the path, waiting to guide the Yusishu, the one sent each generation to calm the Chains. The Yusishu was selected and trained from birth to embark on their sacred quest. Honors were bestowed upon them — statues carved, offerings burned for their favor. And though Azhi had doubted the legends, he'd yearned for glory.

  Then Imoan had called to him in the Memory Grotto.

  As he took another weary step forward, he felt her nudge in his mind, urging him to step slightly to the left. He followed her guidance and felt again the echo of the ancestors' approval. Keeping his mind open to the spirits gave him a pounding headache, but Azhi didn't dare close himself off. To stray from the Evershifting Path would mean sure death, even for a child of the desert. And now that he bore the Binding Ruyi, it would mean that, should he fail, no Yusishu would ever be able to calm the Chains again.

  "Are they close?" he asked Imoan. She could hear his thoughts when he formed them clearly enough, though outside of the Memory Grotto, where she'd first come to him, Imoan only seemed able to answer with impressions.

  The nudge she sent him was not reassuring. Not far, but not near, the Chains lay. Azhi took a deep breath and imagined his disappointment as his mother had taught him, nothing more than desert sand running through his fingers. A moment later, no more than a trace was left behind.

  Yet the doubts remained. Azhi had not been the one trained to be Yusishu. Why Imoan had insisted he must go, that he must be the one to tame the Chains, he still did not understand. All he knew was that when an Elder One called upon you, you answered. That he had done so eagerly did not matter so long as he performed his duty. He clutched at the scepter swinging from his belt, bone-white and crudely hewn, seeming little more than the branch from a tree. All the same, he felt a comforting power resonating from it.

  That Imoan was an Elder One, he was sure, no matter how young she sounded to his mind. Spirits who tempted unwitting children into the desert would not help Azhi walk the Evershifting Path. They would not have the wisdom. Those hungry spirits had no guile, their beings too full of lust for human essence, as it was the only thing that could stave their slow forgetting. Azhi, ever curious, had asked if Elder Ones did not fade then as well, and the ancestors besides, to eventually all become the spirits that preyed on the foolish. The elders had not answered.

  Now Azhi wandered the Wumofu over the bones of those lost long ago. He hoped that his fears were only that. Until he saw otherwise, he refused to give them more substance than dust. Don't water the tumbleferns unless you wish them to grow, as his father always said.

  Azhi raised his eyes for a moment to stretch his aching neck and back. It was a mild storm, but the hazy line of sky was barely visible above the waves of swirling dust. A gloom had settled over the gray land, nearly as featureless as above, with nothing but the rises and falls of dunes formed over thousands of years. To the eye, Azhi was lost. But he heard the song of the ancestors below him. He knew he drew ever closer.

  Closer to the one who had destroyed the greatest empire the world had ever seen.

  Taozu. The name came to his mind unbidden. He flinched as if a brand had been flourished before him, and felt Imoan recoil in his mind. That the name of the Corrupted bore such power affirmed the need to tame the Chains. Only when he drew close to the surface from his stonebound prison did his name hold the power to burn.

  He felt another nudge from Imoan, corrected his step, and kept shuffling along.

  It rose out of the gray land, its branches spreading across the sky like pale lichen over a vast boulder. The Chains resembled a tree, though at an impossible scale. Azhi had only seen the stunted, twisted plants that could survive the brutal conditions of the Wumofu. Never had he seen a tree grow so tall that the tops of it disappeared into the swirling sand above. The storm around it had grown so thick he was surprised any of it was visible, and even with his veil, Azhi had to raise a sheltering arm to feel as if the wind wouldn't peel the very skin from his face. He wondered if the Chains didn't reach to the very edge of the Higher Realm itself.

  Sand swirled together next to him in a small twister. Azhi flinched as a figure formed out of the sand, so exquisite in detail that he could tell it was a girl slighter and shorter than himself. Warmth and serenity radiated from the desert spirit. Azhi knew her at once.

  "Imoan," he breathed. "Are you truly here with me?"

  He felt more than saw her smile with lips of shifting sands. "Not yet."

  "Then you will be soon?"

  She did not answer him but turned her gaze toward the smooth, white tree rising high above them. "Do you feel it?" she whispered in a voice that echoed through his mind. "He thrashes against the ties that bind him. Taozu."

  The name split through Azhi's mind. "Don't say his name here!" he cried, anger and fear sharpening his words.

  The sand spirit did seem to notice. "We must perform the calming. Quickly. Or I fear he will break loose."

  He looked to the Chains and felt what Imoan had described: a presence pulsing from the tree, contained within its huge trunk and wide-spanning branches. Without meaning to, he felt himself plumbing the depths of the trapped being. It was like peering into an endless chasm. Azhi faced something far vaster and greater
than anything he had felt before. He wondered that any chains could hold it.

  "The Corrupted," he whispered.

  Imoan placed a swirling hand on his shoulder, her touch uncomfortably warm. "I would not have selected you for the task if I did not think you capable. You can do this, Azhi. You must. You are the only one who can."

  Her words stirred him, his faltering resolve hardening once more. Azhi had stolen this honor for himself. Now he had to prove he was deserving of it.

  He took one step forward, then another. This close to the Chains, he did not need Imoan to know he walked the Evershifting Path. The ancestors sang with each step, affirming his journey as he drew close to his final destination.

  As he stepped close to the trunk's base, the winds abruptly died. But the world was far from silent. Behind him, the storm raged on, howling with all the fury the Wumofu could muster. And all around him, the ancestors sang, the chorus dissident and beautiful in a way that made Azhi tremble.

  "Continue," Imoan urged him, her voice reedy and thin amongst the others. "Continue before it is too late."

  Azhi could not hurry anymore. It took all his strength just to put one foot before the other. As any other child of the desert, he had run the dunes of the Wumofu for many turns of the sandglass in their endless games. But this continuous march with scant food and water had borne even his buoyant spirit down. Only the song of the ancestors kept it aloft now.

  Reaching the base of the trunk, he paused. The path, ever one road before, had split around the Chains. The one curving to the right wound up around the trunk like a vine, while the one to the left dove into the earth like one of the tree's great roots. Yet though Azhi could perceive them by the strength of their songs, he could not follow either.

  "What am I to do?" he called to Imoan.

  The girl of sand drifted next to him. The swirling of her body faltered, spinning slower than before. "Follow the path," she murmured.

  "Which one?"

  The girl looked up. "Whichever you feel is right."

  Azhi followed her gaze and gasped. Here next to the trunk, he could see the Chains extending ever up, past the dust storm around it, past any measure the eye could see. Now he knew it must reach the Higher Realm, for he saw no end to the pale trunk. He strained to remember all he knew of the Yusishu's journey. Always they spoke of claiming their place in the Higher Realm once their task was complete.

  Azhi knew which path he must take.

  "Ancestors guide me," he murmured, then stepped onto the ascending path.

  His foot stopped a finger's width above the sands. Awed, Azhi took another step, then another. As if he climbed an invisible stairwell, each step brought him further from the ground. It was true. The tales of the Yusishu ascending skyward were true. He almost felt light as he took the next step, then the next.

  Beside him, Imoan grew more present. As sand trickled away from her body, the faint glow of the spirit beneath began to form. The Elder One by his side renewed his purpose. This was what Azhi had been born to do. He had been born the true Yusishu, not Yuan. He had stolen both scepter and opportunity out of necessity. He did this to save his people.

  "Take out the Binding Ruyi," Imoan spoke next to him. "Draw it along the trunk as you ascend and give of yourself as it demands, though sparingly. Your essence must last the sojourn."

  Azhi did as she instructed, untying the scepter from his belt and placing the tip against the trunk. As soon as the end made contact, Azhi felt a jolt of awareness. The being trapped within the Chains, silent before, thrashed like a creature caught in a hidden trap. The Corrupted roared soundlessly, vibrating through Azhi so that, unprepared, he almost lost his footing. The ruyi strayed from the trunk, and awareness broke off.

  He stood trembling for a moment before Imoan placed a hand on his shoulder. "He is more a force of destruction than a sentient being," she murmured. "One that only knows hunger and how to sate it. The Corrupted is one of the oldest inhabitants of any realm, and he will remain long after all else perishes. But by your hand, he will be trapped until dust is all he may scour. Rise, Yusishu. You must perform your duty."

  What else could he do? Azhi climbed to his feet, anchoring down the scepter for support. His legs trembled, and he swayed as he straightened. He was the true Yusishu. Only he could tame the Corrupted.

  As his eyes sought the next step, he saw again nothing below him, nothing but empty air and the sands framed by the circle of wind. Panic rose in him, instinct battling against belief and winning. His head flushed with fear, and he felt his leg give out under him.

  Azhi pitched from the path and fell to the sands far below.

  He sank like a stone through water. The white trunk of the Chains blurred by, and fear rose to swallow him. His head hit first, splitting like a cactus fruit dropped on stone, the sand hard from the force of his long fall. His neck buckled next, bending and cracking as his body followed fast after. Limbs splayed out and lashed against the ground, bones snapping so that he lay like cloth on a windless day. Blood leaked from his wounds, seeping into the sands.

  Pain had been ripped away from him, replaced by numbness. He tried to move his arms and legs, but they did not respond. He could not see. He could not smell. He could not feel. Panic filled him, throbbing in the vacuum of himself. He had become nothing.

  Then the pain returned.

  Something fed on him. Like a desert cat gnawing on a bone, another presence feasted on him like he were nothing more than carrion.

  A foul spirit had found him.

  Stop! he tried to cry out. Stop it!

  But the foul spirit paid him no heed. He felt all of its attention on him but did not feel as if it knew his thoughts as words. A predator it was, and he was nothing more than meat to stave off its hunger.

  Azhi abandoned attempts to move his body and pushed instead with his essence. The great being almost seemed surprised as it drew back. Azhi tried to wrench himself away, but something bound him down, anchoring him in place.

  His body. The memory of what had just happened seeped into his awareness. His body, broken and bleeding into the sands.

  The shock made him pause long enough that the evil spirit seized him again. This time, it knew he would not go quietly and began to chew furiously. Azhi cried out as he was rapidly torn apart.

  Imoan! His Elder One had guided him this far. She would come and save him. But why hadn't she come already? Imoan, please! He has his claws in me!

  Her answer was like a breath on the wind. I am sorry, Azhi. For deceiving you. For what I have brought upon the world.

  She peeled her mind away from his, leaving him to his fate.

  Azhi screamed as the great being gnawed into him. Suddenly, he realized just what it was. Taozu. Taozu consumed him. Taozu worked his way free, and Azhi was his instrument.

  The Corrupted pulsed at the recognition, as if gratified to be known to the world, but did not pause in his feast.

  No matter how he struggled, Azhi could not break free. The overwhelming emptiness behind Taozu's mind sucked him further in, into depths from which he knew he could not return.

  Chanting filled his mind.

  It rose about him, twisting and looping around him and Taozu like a noose. The Corrupted roared with rage and surprise, and for a moment, his attention was pulled from Azhi.

  He seized his chance. Ripping free of the last weak bonds of his body, he fled into the vast, unknowable plane about him.

  Slowly, senses returned to him, though they were not the same as when he'd been alive. Energy pulsed in this world, heat radiating through and around him. He feared he would lose himself if he did not hold his essence together in this ever-changing world.

  Taozu roared behind him once more, reminding Azhi of the danger. He sensed the Corrupted now as a rising inferno, raging and seething as a glowing white rope sought to contain him. As the chanting grew ever louder, Azhi suddenly understood. The Evershifting Path, formed of the faded essence of the ancestors, had risen in one
last effort to contain him.

  But as rope before fire, the ancestors were quickly thinning and fading, their song growing fainter. Despair froze him in place as he realized the truth. Taozu would tear free. As he had destroyed the empire of old, so he would destroy the Four Realms, the last civilizations in the world.

  And it had been Azhi who had freed him.

  As Taozu's fury grew, so did his presence. Azhi felt his hunger for essence as if the hunger were his own and trembled at the horrifying feeling. Before he wrested back control of himself, he had felt the desire to consume fill him.

  Azhi fled, leaving behind the thrashing demon and the fading ancestors. As he realized the truth, it nearly tore him apart. He had never been the Yusishu. He had been a stupid boy following a glorious mirage, believing an evil spirit to be an Elder One. Imoan had deceived him, but only because he had let her.

  He was the boy who had doomed the world.

  Azhi soared fast through the Higher Realm, far away, and left Taozu to destroy the Evershifting Path and break loose for his last, great feast.

  1

  Feast & Famine

  The Festival of Radiance, a celebration as old as Oedija, is a reminder of the Hunger War that drove our ancestors across the Lighted Sea, when the daemon god Famine slew the Foremost of our gods and nearly swallowed the world…