Read Online The Marked Son (Keepers of Life) by Shea Berkley - Free Book Online

a sad tune and sewing a button on one of Lani’s shirts. Seeing Signe brought to mind kindness and secrets and forever friends.
    Signe glanced up, and the hurt in her eyes mirrored Kera’s own. Tears sparkled behind her lashes. “She’s hanging in the square. Nailed to the post like a criminal. Her head on a spike. What was her crime?”
    Shame pinched Kera’s chest. While she’d been hiding in the other realm, one of her best friends had been mourning the death of her sister. Alone. She knelt before Signe and hugged her. “She was innocent. The sweetest of us. I followed Navar, thinking I could help her, but there were too many of them. I’m so sorry.”
    Remembering her inability to rescue her friend had bile rising in her throat, and to think of her hanging in the square for all to see… Silent tears broke free.
    Signe hugged her tighter. “She wouldn’t have wanted you to risk your life for hers. You know she wouldn’t.”
    “I know, but—”
    “No. Don’t do that to yourself.” Signe gripped the edge of her sleeve and patted away the evidence of their sorrow. It was only then that she noticed Kera’s lack of clothing. “What’s going on?”
    Kera stood. That she’d been able to break through the wall separating the two realms still unsettled her, and seeing Dylan kept her off balance in a way that made everything she did seem unreal. “I…I need to borrow some clothes.”
    Signe pushed back a lock of curly red hair that defied containing and looked down at the clothes in her hands. “You can have these. I don’t know why I’m mending them. She’s not coming back, I know that, but I couldn’t bear to see them in such disrepair.” The freckles splashed across her nose and pale cheeks brightened, as if she were admitting to doing something wrong.
    The clothes she held were cut in a boy’s style, but were made for Lani. She wore them when she went foraging, more of an excuse to scout out the area for anyone nosing around. It was a job Lani had taken upon herself, and one the group took advantage of.
    Signe tied off the thread and stood. “I won’t ask you where your clothes are, but are you in trouble?”
    Kera’s gaze swept the tiny space. Their only privacy from the others who lived in the caves was a rickety screen made of woven branches. The whir of earth heaters, plus the sound of tunnels being dug, rattled the air.
    Fearing they could be overheard, Kera kept her voice quiet. “What do you know about the barrier?”
    Signe turned Kera around and helped her out of the cumbersome layers of underskirts. “Not much. Only that to go there, to try and cross between the realms, will bring about death.”
    She turned Kera back around and handed her the trousers.
    The well-worn cloth slipped over her skin, whisper soft. It wasn’t the first time she’d worn Lani’s clothes, but pulling on the dark trousers made her wonder why Lani hadn’t worn clothes that blended in with the forest. Why wear a bright blue dress?
    “Lani was found close to the barrier.” Kera watched Signe’s face. “Too close.”
    Her friend bit her lip in an effort to stop its trembling. “She was foraging. Don’t look at me like that. She wouldn’t cross over. What would she gain by doing so?”
    Now she knew something was wrong. Lani never foraged in anything but the clothes Signe had just mended. She couldn’t keep the secret a moment longer. “I found a rip in the wall.”
    Signe hugged Lani’s shirt to her chest. “How? Where?”
    “So you know nothing about it? Did Lani?” Kera held out her hand for the dark shirt.
    “No.” Signe handed over the shirt and shook her head. “She would have told me. You know her—she told us everything. If the wall is weakening, then it has to do with Navar. Everything is falling apart, and it’s all because of him. He’ll do anything to gain the throne.”
    Kera finished buttoning her shirt. “You’re probably right. Navar’s treachery shouldn’t surprise me, but