Blind the Stars (Rose of the Dawn Series Book 3) by Ily Maguire Page A

begun to penetrate the forest. In another ten minutes
we are out of the forest and in a clearing where the landscape changes
drastically. There is more tall grass instead of tall trees. We hike through
the grass, it itches my skin as it brushes against me. I am reminded of my
arrival in Aegis. There are definite similarities with the tall grass. Just as
it starts to get oppressively hot, a breeze blows up, cooling down my skin.
    Within
a few minutes we are back beside the stream. If it’s the same stream we
followed off and on from my house, I wonder why we went through the woods
instead of following the water.
    The
woods continue alongside us, but the only thing I can see now ahead is the blue
sky of the horizon. Pike and Ezekiel stop and take in the surroundings. They
huddle together, probably to review some plan I’m not privy to. It’s okay. I
look down. The banks of the stream are a golden sandy color. There isn’t any
dirt despite just leaving the forest. Curious, I take my boots off and dig my
toes into the sand. I’ve never felt sand before and it’s warm and then cool as
I scrunch my toes deeper in. It sends shivers up my legs.
    “Don’t
do that! Put your boots back on!” Pike yells at me and rushes over. I fall back
onto the sand. Pike takes my foot, wipes it on his pants and crams it into my
boot. He does the same with the other.
    “What’s
wrong?” I ask. Pike pulls me back up. He’s breathing hard.
    “There
are chemicals in the sand.” Pike takes my hands and wipes them, too. Not on his
pants, though. With his own hands. “It was used to dissolve the whales.”
    “Whales?”
I ask. He nods his head.
    “Whales
were slaughtered here and the lye is still in the land. See-” He points to
lifeless corpses of frogs in varying stages of early development, all
apparently trying to scramble their way up the sandy banks along the shore, but
not making it because of underdeveloped or nonexistent limbs. “Dead frogs. Not
evolution.” Pike brushes his hands on his pants and hurries to catch up to
Ezekiel, waiting just up ahead.
    I
crouch down in the sand to tie my bootlaces and see tiny specks in the water along
the edge. They undulate as one, but upon closer inspection, each individual
flagellum is a tiny tadpole. No wait, each tadpole has two. Two tails. I stand
up and shiver. Then look back at the dead frogs that I somehow hadn’t noticed
before and hurry ahead with the frightful realization that there is something
drastically wrong.
    “Isn’t
it dangerous to have a safe house way out here?” I ask, knowing full well that
it is. “If the lye is just under the surface-”
    “It’s
all gone from the Sunken City and Lye Island’s pretty clean as well,” Pike
tells me. “There’s a constant transfer of water over there. Here, not so much.
This water is too stagnant.” I think about the hopelessness of those tadpoles.
They don’t stand a chance.
    “Are
we close, then?” I ask.
    “We
are. Maybe another mile,” Ezekiel answers. We’ve already walked a mile or so.
    “It’s
just up ahead that the stream empties into the ocean. Once the water starts to
rise, we’ll want to move up, too,” Pike adds. As the water rises, secluded
pools of brackish water appear where fresh water from the stream starts to mix
with salt water from the ocean. I still don’t see much up ahead, but we keep
walking. It’s so quiet out here. There isn’t the sound of anything. Not the
water flowing, no birds chirping, or even animals rooting around among the
trees beside us. Nothing.
    “The
saltwater moves upstream and the fresh flows down. Their densities are
different enough and they separate. Saltwater having a greater mass per volume
than freshwater, it’s denser. It can even conduct electricity.” I almost bump
into Pike who’s stopped to stare at me. “I learned that with Jenny,” I admit.
He smiles. My head held a little higher, I walk ahead.
    “We’re
almost there. A little less than a quarter