A Web of Steam & Puppet Strings (Sevastyan #1)

Chapter Two

But there was quite an extensive, vibrant mural lighting up the wooden wall. Oh yes, very extensive. Perhaps drawn by an ‘artist’ with exceedingly too much free time. Perhaps drawn by an artist who should have been physically training, like his fellow compound mates often did, to strengthen an otherwise mediocre body. Perhaps drawn by an artist lacking a particular special someone to particularly, specially distract said ‘artist’.

How embarrassing.

Who would own up to such a comparison?

I shifted the crate of chalk under my arm and marched on.

The sun hadn’t quite crested the horizon yet. The morning was still young, the sky pale and the stars fading. The dirt crunched with each step, overriding the murmur of brisk wind. At a distance, the wall looked like nothing more than ribbons of colors, but as I headed to the spot where I’d left off, the details sharpened, telling a story of traveling through abandoned villages along the ocean, of each person and the wild horses and torrential rains.

I stopped at his face.

The face of the one who had resisted.

I hadn’t realized how much of him I had committed to memory until I’d started drawing him the day before, sketching out the strong contours of his features and the curve of his lips and the mischievous pinch of his eyes. The sketch was nearly finished, but as I looked upon him with fresh eyes, I spotted the tweaks needed before I could throw down color.

After I pulled up my handmade excuse for a stepstool, hammered from bedrock and as sturdy as standing on a wild pheasant, I searched out the individual boxes of painstakingly organized chalk for a particular shade of lavender and the powdery residue clung to my fingers. I scraped the chalk against the wood to refine the crinkle of his nose, the crooked smirk, and the weight of his brow. The line of his jaw took a few more strokes, and then I filled in the short scruff of his hair.

I climbed down and stepped back. Young sunlight paled the sky above and brightened the lines of my sketch.

Good. This looked good.

The next step was color. The fever flooded my veins and his eyes consumed me. I leaned in until my nose was an inch from the boards, and I poured gold into his amber eyes, layered the whites, and crafted his eyelashes. Steady strokes and jabs and gentle shading with a rainbow of colors gave the depth I desired.

Time didn’t exist. The tiny world of the compound was a bad dream. A night terror. This face that I crafted was real. It was the only thing that was real.

Footsteps came up behind me, jarring me from my concentration. I recognized the pattern of her footfalls, the lightness of her step and the bounce in her walk.

“Sev! Are you drawing him again?”

I took a moment to remember where I was—and to wipe the sweat from my brow—and then twisted from my seat at the edge of the stepstool. The sun had risen, soaking the Playground with early light and casting long shadows. The warm brown of her skin glowed in sunlight. Whereas my flesh was a ratio of more earth than sand, hers was all earth, in the deep forests far from the colonies of the canals and oceans. Her face was round, eyelids smooth without creases, and nose long. Even if I would never tell her, I knew I could paint her from memory just as well.

“Is everyone up already?” I might have pouted, although I would never admit to it. “Did I lose track of time again?”

“You certainly did. Everyone’s been up a while now.” She collected her abundance of black hair from her wiry shoulders. “He’s striking, isn’t he? Is he really so gorgeous or are you making it up?”