Read Online Archon by Lana Krumwiede - Free Book Online

pretty quick, so no need for big fires.”
    “I suppose I could use a little psi to trap them.”
    “No,” Amma said. “I know how to set a snare. We’ll save your psi till we really need it —
if
we really need it.”
    “If I’m careful, if I use just a little —”
    “You don’t know how much is too much. No psi, Taemon. Not until your shoulder gets better.”
    Amma arranged the rocks she had collected to make a circle around the fire. They would place the larger, smoother rocks at the bottom of their bedrolls when it was time to sleep.
    Taemon gathered his food and prepared to scoot closer to the fire, but his left arm decided not to cooperate, collapsing under him as he tried to push himself off the ground. His food spilled at his feet. “Oops,” he said. “That was clumsy.”
    Amma pursed her lips. “Here, let me.” She gathered up the scattered food and handed it back to Taemon.
    “Nature’s seasoning,” Amma said, pointing to the bits of dirt clinging to his food. “That’s what my brothers call it.”
    Taemon ate a slice of dried apple and nodded. “It adds a woody flavor. With a hint of earthworm. Quite nice, actually.”
    That at least got a smile out of her, but Taemon could tell that Amma was worried about his injury. Truthfully, he was worried, too. The numbness in his arm did not seem to be improving. There were days when he couldn’t feel anything from his fingertips to his shoulder. At least there was no pain involved.
    After they’d eaten, Amma set to work on her squirrel snares, whittling sticks and tying pieces of twine to them. Taemon pulled the scarf Challis had given him from his knapsack and ran his hand across the strange design.
    “Is that one of Challis’s scarves?”
    Taemon nodded. “Do you like it?” He wrapped it around his neck and struck a silly pose. “Challis said you would.”
    “It looks very . . . warm,” she said with a laugh.
    “Warm is good,” Taemon said. “I’m liking warm more and more each day.”
    Amma got up to check the rocks by the fire. “Then you’ll like these rocks. They’re just about ready.”
    A few days back, when the temperature became uncomfortably cold for the first time, Amma had shown Taemon how to heat smooth stones by the fire and use big, glossy leaves they’d gathered to wrap the heated rocks and make bedroll warmers. It was a trick her brothers had taught her.
    Taemon thought of his own brother. The only tricks Yens had shown him were the cruel kind, and those were usually aimed at Taemon. He wondered how different his life might have been if he’d grown up with a family like Amma’s.
    Taemon watched as Amma tied the wrapped rocks with thin vines and placed a couple at the bottom of each of their bedrolls. Later, when he climbed inside his bedroll, the toasty heat warmed his toes. By morning the rocks would be cold, but his bedroll stayed warm long enough for Taemon to fall asleep.
    The next morning, Amma had an announcement: “Today’s the day we should find the saddle.”
    “The saddle?”
    “That’s how it was labeled on the map,” Amma said. “It’s a dip where two valleys connect, so it probably looks like a saddle. That’s where we’ll need to cross over.”
    Taemon frowned. “It can’t be that simple. Otherwise people would have crossed the mountain long ago.”
    “True,” Amma said. “But remember that crossing the mountain was forbidden. From what I know of the city, people learn from a young age that they can’t do anything without permission. Would any of you even have thought to try to visit the Republik?”
    Taemon shook his head. It had certainly never occurred to
him
to try to cross Mount Deliverance, and he’d never heard anyone talk about it, not even Yens, who seemed to think the rules didn’t apply to him. Still, he couldn’t shake the idea that crossing the mountain was going to be more complicated than hopping over a saddle.
    Just getting to the saddle proved difficult. The slope