Are you ready? The shadow is falling, and the meteor is
coming... SHADOW FALL by Audrey Grey has arrived! You can get your copy now for
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about
the book:
The
asteroid hurtling toward the earth will kill billions.
The Emperor and his Gold Court will be safe in their space
station, watching from the stars. The Silvers will be protected underground.
But the Bronzes must fight it out at the Shadow Trials for the few remaining
spots left on the space station.
When an enigmatic benefactor hands Maia Graystone a spot in the
Trials, she won’t just get a chance at salvation for her and her baby brother,
Max: She gets to confront the mother who abandoned her in prison, the mad
Emperor who murdered her father, and the Gold prince who once loved her. But
it’s the dark bastard prince she’s partnered with that will make her question
everything, including her own heart. With the asteroid racing closer every day,
Maia must trust someone to survive. The question is who?
about
the author:
Audrey Grey lives in the charming state of Oklahoma, with her
husband, two little people, and four mischievous dogs. You can usually find her
hiding out in her office from said little people and dogs, surrounded by books
and sipping kombucha while dreaming up wondrous worlds for her characters to
live in.
EXCERPT:
My legs wobble as I step into the
now lukewarm water. I sink to the bottom. Tiny bubbles escape my nose as I
watch all the ugly remnants from the last seven years leave my body.
Lungs burning, I rise and come
face-to-face with Pit Boy.
I glare at him. “You really have to
work on the knocking thing.”
Despite the fact that I’m indecent,
his attention never falls from my face. I almost wish it would, just to give me
a break from the intensity of his focus.
“I only get a few more hours to be
the ‘one-eyed freak’ from the pit. Might as well take advantage.” He doesn’t
dare crack a smile, so it’s hard to tell if he’s joking or serious.
“Don’t worry. In my heart, that’s
exactly who you’ll always be.”
His words remind me that soon we’ll
be reconstructed using forbidden nanotech. But it won’t just be our flesh
they’ll reengineer. It will be our brains, too.
I don’t foresee my rewiring being
too complicated, but Riser needs to upload almost twenty years of false
memories. That will be tricky and time-consuming.
And time is the one thing we don’t
have.
Riser flicks his gaze to the
mirror. He lifts a hand, touches the patch of mottled flesh where his eye
should be.
“How did it happen?” I ask.
“Careful, my lady.” His gaze
settles on my face. “You’re beginning to sound like you care.”
I roll my eyes. “And I
thought I was lacking in conversational skills.”
He focuses his attention on the
graffiti sprayed across the mirror.
“It’s written language,” I blurt,
even though all I want to do is end the conversation so Pit Boy can leave. His
presence unnerves me more than the other Pit Leeches ever could. “It’s how we
communicate.”
“I know what it is.” He examines
his jagged thumbnail. “I just . . . can’t read it.”
“It’s just stuff about the Chosen.
You know, insults.” The populace is finicky. As much as they love watching the
Chosen with their petty intrigues and court life, they would be just as happy
to see their heads on a pike.
“Chosen?”
Time to explain
what you are, Everly, Nicolai’s voice grates inside my
head. Riser’s eyes flutter just enough that I know he’s heard Nicolai’s voice
too.
You do it,
I think, watching Riser’s reaction. But his face remains emotionless; either
he’s a good actor or only Nicolai can hear my response.
“The Royalist astronomers
discovered the asteroid twenty-one years ago,” I begin. “It’s actually a slow
moving planet called an earth-crosser, meaning its orbit and ours intersect
every twenty-thousand years. Usually it’s too far away to affect us, but this
time it will pass close enough to wreak havoc and make the earth uninhabitable
for years.” I stir the water with my big toe. “Before I was born, the Emperor
decided that creating a population of genetically superior humans would be a
great idea, you know, just in case the Caskets don’t work or the asteroid does
more damage than predicted.”
Riser’s hyper-focused gaze bores
through me. “You’re one of them?”
“Yes.” I run my hand through the
filthy water. “But my father’s a Bronze, so even though my mother comes from a
Gold House, the Emperor only allowed them one Chosen instead of the customary
twins. So it’s just me . . . not Max.”
“What makes being Chosen so
special?”
“I don’t know . . .” I bite my lip,
trying to remember everything my parents told me. “My genes are perfect, I
guess.”
For some reason, talking about my
body makes me remember that I am naked in a room with a boy. As if reading my
mind, Riser slowly lets his gaze fall, his expression both curious and
unapologetic as he takes me all in, his thoughts cryptic.
“What are you staring at?” I blurt,
smashing my breasts beneath my hands. Not like there’s much there to cover.
“Haven’t you seen a naked girl before?”
A smile twitches his lips. “Not one
that’s genetically flawless.”
“It doesn’t work that way! You
can’t just look at us and tell. We look like everyone else—”
“No.” Riser shakes his head, a dark
swath of hair covering his damaged eye. “You don’t. Whatever you are.”
“You must be happy . . . about our
reconstruction, I mean,” I mumble, trying desperately to change the subject.
“They’ll fix your eye . . . and . . . and all those horrible scars.”
I freeze as he slides off the
counter, unable to look away as he hooks one finger beneath his shirt and
lifts.
Scars ravage his anemic body in
varying shades of red and silver and white. Some deep and pitted like the
craters of a far-away planet, others smooth and neat. One particular nasty scar
carves down his shoulder, tunneling across his chest and stomach. A fresh red
wound nestles just below his throat.
He carefully touches the long ugly
one. “I’m not ashamed for surviving.”
