ChaPter 2 - Carnival of Souls by Melissa Marr

Carnival of souls
world that highborn women were taught to avoid—and curs
wished they could avoid. She made no sense to him. She had
been born to privilege, yet she risked everything to gain the
right to work.
Kaleb decided to walk away. He had a fight in the morning,
and watching judgment always made him feel ill. He would
hear the ruling tomorrow just as easily. He left the crush of
bodies, and in the shadow of an unoccupied stall, he slipped
on an unornamented black mask. His current mask didn’t
cover his whole face, but it hid enough of his features that
between the mask and his plain clothes, he could disappear
into the crowd. Just another killer. He walked farther from the
seething press of bodies, as eager to get away from them now as
he had been to be among them earlier, but before he got very
far, a ripple of excited words stopped him.
“Marchosias.”
“Marchosias is here.”
“To deliver punishment?”
“To deliver absolution!”
“Who cares? He’s here.”
The words were uttered with reverence as the ruler of The
City strode across the wooden stage with the same casual ease
he’d use walking into a shopping stall. As he removed his jacket,
he made his stance on the proceedings known: Marchosias
had donned a sleeveless tunic that revealed a number of scars
from long-ago fights. Without a word, he made clear that he
stood with the accused fighter.
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