The City of Broken Dragons, by D.H. Nevins

The Cliff - Part 1

A rogue gust of wind snatched at my body, and I flattened myself against the rock face to keep from losing my footing. Rough edges of stone dug into my soft hands, the crumbling surface making my fingers slip. I glanced down at the chunky heels on my shoes and firmed my jaw. Rune—the idiot I was following—wasn't dressed properly either. And if he could do it, then so could I.

God, I hated him. I should have punched him in the face when I had the chance, right in the middle of Professor Bakshi's lecture on classic literature. It would have been worth the risk of expulsion. Considering how much I was paying for this term of university, that was saying something.

Yet I had chickened out. And now I was trailing him like a damned stalker. I was far enough behind that I was mostly out of sight... as long as he didn't turn around.

I couldn't explain what I expected to find by secretly following him, but there had to be something. I knew I was grasping, needing a reason to justify the burning hatred I had for the guy. I stabilized my footing and focused, reminding myself that my instincts had rarely led me astray, and there was something seriously off about him. Granted, he had always been rude to me, loudly countering every comment I made in class, to the point that even my classmates would shift in discomfort. Yet I wasn't so petty that my feelings were only based on that... was I?

No, I reminded myself. He had somehow tricked our classmates into giving him some of their most cherished items, and I didn't know how or why he did it. They didn't even seem to realize anything was amiss. Why? Plus, he was just... awful. From day one, Rune had given off a vibe of danger—of wretchedness. Those dark feelings, amplified by his constant verbal attacks on me, had manifested into an almost obsessive kind of hate. For my own sanity, it was time to stamp that out. Following Rune was the only plan I had. I had hoped I would gain some insight that would put my dark thoughts to rest, one way or the other. But this? I had never expected this.

Without a solid motive, I was following a finely dressed dumb-ass as he scaled a damn cliff. What was he doing out here? I shook my head at the ludicrousy of the situation as I moved from one dip in the rock face to another to avoid his detection. This wasn't me. Missing my books and my solitude, I longed to simply go home to my apartment to read. Like usual. What the hell was I doing?

Another blast of wind pulled at me, and I squished the side of my face against the rock. I held my breath, cursing Rune under it. The jerk didn't appear to be bothered by the gust. He leaned into it while his black silk jacket flapped against him. A subtle flash of paisleys on his Asian-style jacket winked at me in the sun, making me want to gag. He looked stupid. Like usual. He was clearly around my age, but his clothing was always a little too fancy and incrementally too strange for attending university lectures. Perhaps he was only expressing himself. But if you asked me, what he wore was simply odd. To make it worse, he always embellished with something that was a little too flashy, like audacious golden plates on his dress shoes, a shiny, metallic belt or a ridiculous jeweled watch. And now, dressed like an adorned kung fu master in brogues, he was navigating a treacherous path high above a rock-strewn ground, going who the hell knew where.

And like my own kind of lunatic, I was trailing him. Of course, I blamed him for it. Rune brought out the worst in me. As I replayed his snide remarks to me in class, I became careless with my footing, and my shoes were not up to the task. I had been ecstatic when I had found the pricey Fluevog shoes in a secondhand store. But their poor excuse for treads were no match for the loose scree I stepped upon—and they couldn't grip. My foot slipped and shot out over the edge. There was nothing but empty air under my shoe and then, far below, masses of broken rock. I gasped and pulled my body against the cliff.

Ahead of me, Rune paused. He half-turned his head. I pushed myself tighter into a dip of rock and held my breath. Despite his pause, he didn't appear to notice me. I stared at his profile, and although he was handsome, that never tempered my reaction. Instead, it was the strangest and keenest feeling of distrust that locked up my limbs. And it was always the same. Black emotions crackled in cold tendrils down my back, right to the base of my spine.

I swallowed the feelings down while I glared at him, loosening my iron-tight grip on the rocks as he turned his head to continue. With apparent ease, Rune shimmied along the narrow path. His hands glided over the rocks, seeming to know all the holds by heart. It took every bit of my audacity to keep up with him. But this was it... I knew I was getting closer to discovering his secret—for uncovering him for what he was.

He slipped around a corner, and as much as my footing would allow, I hurried to get him back in my sight. Yet, when I reached the edge of the rock, I was unprepared for what I saw.

Rune stood on a narrow ledge, facing out over the gaping air below. And then he jumped.