Descendant
The second thrilling digital prequel novella to Endgame: The Calling follows the lives of four of the twelve Players before they were chosen as the one to save their ancient bloodline - and win Endgame.Before the Calling . . . Twelve Players-in-training are tested to the very edge of their physical and mental abilities. The second Training Diaries follows Baitsakhan, Maccabee, Shari, and Aisling, as they prepare for the apocalyptic game.They must shed their normal lives and transform into the. Players they were meant to be. They must train, learn, prepare. To Play, survive, and solve. To kill or be killed.Endgame is real. Endgame is coming. And only one can win.
Читать Descendant онлайн беплатно
First Published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers in 2015.
1 London Bridge Street
London, SE1 9GF
ENDGAME: THE TRAINING DIARIES VOLUME 2: DESCENDANT. Copyright © 2015 by Third Floor Fun, LLC. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Source ISBN: 97800062332684
Ebook Edition © February 2015 ISBN: 9780007585175
Version: 2015-02-18
Contents
Excerpt from Endgame: The Calling
Excerpt from Endgame: The Training Diaries Volume 1: Origins
Twelve thousand years ago, they came. They descended from the sky amid smoke and fire, and created humanity and gave us rules to live by. They needed gold and they built our earliest civilizations to mine it for them. When they had what they needed, they left. But before they left, they told us that someday they would come back, and that when they did, a game would be played. A game that would determine our future.
This is Endgame.
For 10,000 years the lines have existed in secret. The 12 original lines of humanity. Each has to have a Player prepared at all times. A Player becomes eligible at 13 and ages out at 19. Each bloodline has its own measure of who is worthy to be chosen. Who is worthy of saving their people. They have trained generation after generation after generation in weapons, languages, history, tactics, disguise, assassination. Together the Players are everything: strong, kind, ruthless, loyal, smart, stupid, ugly, lustful, mean, fickle, beautiful, calculating, lazy, exuberant, weak. They are good and evil. Like you. Like all.
This is Endgame.
When the game starts, the Players will have to find three keys. The keys are somewhere on Earth. The only rule of Endgame is that there are no rules. Whoever finds the keys first wins the game.
These are the stories of the Players before they were chosenâof how they shed their normal lives and transformed into the Players they were meant to be.
These are the Training Diaries.
This is the story Aisling Kopp, Player of the 3rd line, does not know.
This is the story Aisling Kopp will never know, because the only one who could tell it is dead.
This is the story of her life and her lineâthe story of how she began and how the world will end.
This is the story of a hero and a traitor, neither of them certain which is which.
This is the story before the story.
Before Aisling.
The end:
Declan Kopp stands at the mouth of the cave, a 2,500-year-old sword in his hand. The heft of it calms him. The familiar grip reminds him of a time when the Falcata was rightfully his to wield, a simpler time, when he could lay its blade against flesh and enjoy the kill.
A time before Aisling was alive, a time before Lorelei was dead, a time when he was young and foolish and the sword was a symbol of all things just and good.
Now itâs nothing but a symbol of the lines heâs crossed.
The people heâs betrayed.
The home heâs left behind and the family to which he can never return.
The ancient sword, like the polished stone in his pocket, like the baby whimpering in the dark depths of the cave, is a precious stolen good.
Not his to takeâbut taken nonetheless.
Thatâs what they would say, at least.
They: the High Council. The La Tène Player. His father.
Everyone who matters to him, or once did.
Once, he had so much in his life. Family, love, hopeâthe belief that his lifeâs mission was just and his future was fated. Once, he had certainty.
Now he has only his stolen child, and her birthright.
He has the Falcata, whose razor-sharp blade has taken 3,890 lives and awaits its next kill.
And he has a few precious hours, or maybe minutes, before they come for him and try to reclaim what heâs stolenâbefore he and the sword make their last stand.
The childâs cries echo through the dark.
âPeace, Aisling,â he calls to her. âDaddyâs here. Daddy will protect you, I promise.â
Sheâs too young to understandâand too young to recognize the lie. He canât promise to protect her. Only to try.
Heâs given up everything, trying to save his daughter from her fateâbut still itâs not enough. The cave is surrounded. Thereâs no way out. No way down the mountain, not for him. The final battle is coming, and he will not survive it. He knows that.
Heâs lured them here, knowing that.
They will pursue him wherever he goes. He finally understands: There is no safe place for him and his daughter, not in this world. He fought; he lost. Letting them follow him here is his last, final, desperate effort to make them see the truth.
