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TORTH Book I

CITY OF SLAVES

Prologue
Eleven Years Ago (NOTE: This scene may be deleted from the final draft)

a Puritan-built wall

She abandons her newborn infant in the woods.
She dumps it on an icy roadside in the hour before dawn, like a Spartan wife ridding herself of a deformed baby, like a medieval peasant sacrificing her child to trolls. She tucks it in a blue-striped dish towel and leaves it to freeze to death.
"The best ending for you," she murmurs.
The unnamed infant squalls. His eyes, bright violet, fix on her.
She turns away, silhouetted by the headlights of her idling car, snowflakes seesawing past her. "You don't belong on this world. Or any world."
The infant is shivering violently. He squirms, seeking warmth, but she dwindles and blends into the night, coat flaring behind her, blond braid swinging. The door shuts. The car glides away.
The infant is left alone in subzero darkness. Frozen branches scrape against each other, like hanging skeletons stirred by death's exhalation. His mother's last whisper hangs in the silence. "I must never think of you."

ALTERNATE PROLOGUE: CONTINUED...

Please note: The TORTH series was written by Abby Goldsmith, and no part of it may be distributed or sold without the author's permission.
City of Slaves is approximately 105,000 words. Three follow-up books are also complete.

Please click HERE if you might be willing to test read City of Slaves

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All material Copyright © 2025 Abby Goldsmith, except where otherwise noted.
All rights reserved. No part of this may be reproduced or reprinted without prior written permission from the author.
Document updated: 05 September 2016 - 17:38:42

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