Read Online Bloodmoon (The Scarlet Star Trilogy Book 2) by Ben Galley - Free Book Online Page B

gets stronger if you use it less?’
    ‘No, not really. It’s your perception of it that changes. You notice all the little things, feel it deeper, or so I’m told. Just like Lurker and his whiskey, or his tobacco. The more you miss it, the better it feels when you find some. The more you notice every last drop.’
    ‘That makes sense, I suppose,’ Merion replied, nodding. He let the magick flow for a while, guiltily savouring it. ‘So what is that handshake, then? When were you going to show me that, hm?’ he asked her, raising an eyebrow, a curious smile on his lips. The blood had shoved him into good spirits.
    ‘I was wonderin’ how long it would take you to ask.’
    ‘As if you can blame the boy,’ Lurker interjected. ‘He’s thirteen years old. There’s a secret handshake for bloodrushers. Of course he wants to know it,’ he chuckled.
    ‘That’s enough out of you, Lurker. I was going to show him, fear not!’ Lilain chided him.
    Merion grinned. ‘You were?’
    ‘Well, it makes sense to,’ she replied, ‘to be able to tell your friends from your enemies. To know your letters from your Averines, if you know what I mean.’
    ‘Good point.’ Lilain reached forwards and clasped his hand, and as she did so, she folded her smallest finger in to her palm and tapped, once. Merion instinctively did the same, clumsily at first, but he got there in the end.
    ‘That’s it, and again, fold before you shake,’ Lilain said.
    A few more tries, and Merion had it. He practised a few times on Lurker’s raspy gloves for good measure and then nodded to himself, obviously pleased. ‘Anything else I should know about, while we’re at it?’ he asked.
    ‘Just the bloodrushing tax. Payable to your local letter on the first of the month. One florin,’ Lilain answered with a shrug. ‘I’ll make sure it gets to the right people.’
    ‘Or your local prospector can do the same job, but slightly cheaper,’ Lurker smirked.
    Merion shook his head. ‘Cheats and liars, the both of you. Come on, before we end up as puddles of sweat in the desert.’
    *
    Sand and rock watched them pass by, lazy and still in the afternoon scorching of the summer sun. June in the desert had a cruel taste to it. If the heat did not make you sweat and burn, then the light blinded you, or the terrain tricked you, fouling your tired steps.
    Even when the sand faded into prairie here and there, where the sagebrush and hardy grasses swayed in the hot breeze, they got no relief. The ground undulated and swayed, as if designed to weary even the hardiest traveller. It was as though the desert resented wanderers across its dusty skin, the way a dog might nibble at fleas. The constant ups and downs and rocky tors made their lungs burn. Even Merion was tired. The mule shade had died away after an hour or two, as his aunt had said, and he had succumbed to the sweltering drudgery.
    By early evening, their feet were sore and hot and their mouths were parched like roof-slats. They longed for a place to rest their limbs. Lilain was lagging behind and Lurker had dropped back to help her. Merion was striding ahead, leading them towards a distant smudge of green and brown, where a handful of hardy trees had banded together to form a copse. As they drew nearer, something sparkled in the orange glow of the setting sun, something that looked like water between a huddled copse of trees. Merion’s tongue rasped between his cracked lips.
    Rhin, who had met them a mile past the church, strode beside him, silent and yet keeping pace with the purposeful boy. His own withered tongue had another longing. It wanted to speak, to break the constant thudding of boots and crunching sand and say something. Anything .
    To his utter surprise, it was Merion who broke the silence.
    ‘Looks like water,’ muttered the boy.
    Rhin squinted, and saw the glittering between the trees. ‘That it does. By the Roots, that’s lucky.’
    ‘I can’t tell whether we’re on a winning