Read Online Faces by E.C. Blake - Free Book Online Page B

the Autarch . . . and every Mask in Aygrima.”
    The Lady let the tent flap close behind her, shutting out the camp, the unMasked Army, Keltan, Chell, Catilla, Edrik, Hyram, and all the others. “And so you shall,” she said softly. “And so you shall.”

FOUR
The White Fortress
    T HE NEXT MORNING, Mara saw the Lady’s fortress for the first time. Side by side, she and the Lady crested the ridge they had been climbing so laboriously the day before, and looked down into the valley below, vast and wide, blue and hazy. The rising sun lit from behind the curling tendrils of smoke rising from a distant village, and silhouetted the stone redoubt set high above it on the cliffs that marked the valley’s eastern end. A wide white streak on those cliffs spoke of a waterfall, whether frozen or liquid Mara couldn’t see at that distance and in that light. It fell to the river that wound along the valley floor, snow-covered fields and snug farmhouses stretching out from it on either side. “My home,” the Lady said simply. “What do you think?”
    â€œIt’s beautiful,” Mara said. She lowered her eyes from the distant battlemented castle to the river. “Does that river flow to the sea?”
    â€œAll rivers flow to the sea,” the Lady said. “But in this case, alas, not in any fashion that would have offered us an easier approach, if that is what you were wondering.”
    It was, of course, and yet again Mara wondered if the Lady could somehow read her thoughts.
    â€œAt the western end of the valley, below us and out of sight, the river plunges into a canyon and gallops through it all the way to the coast. The walls are sheer and the current fierce. Nothing can approach the valley via that route.”
    Mara nodded. “How many people live down there?”
    The Lady cocked her head as if mentally counting. “Currently, two thousand, four hundred and fifty-six people make the valley their home,” she said.
    Mara shot her a startled look. “That many? But you said they were dwindling.”
    â€œThey are,” the Lady said. “Not enough children are being born. The population is aging. We need fresh blood.” She looked right, to the south. “We need to regain our long-lost connection to the people of Aygrima. And so we shall. Now that I have you.” She stared south for another long moment, then shook her head. “Well. That is a discussion for a later time. For now, we must concentrate on the descent into the valley. The path is steep and slippery. We may be able to see my home from here, but we will spend one more night on the trail, tonight at the base of the slope, before pushing on tomorrow. You and I will go ahead in the morning and leave the sluggards behind. We will reach my fortress by midday. The others may not arrive until almost sunset tomorrow.”
    Mara wanted to protest the use of the word “sluggards” to describe the struggling band of refugees in their wake, but her momentary outrage vanished beneath the exciting prospect of reaching the Lady’s fortress and finally—finally!—beginning to truly learn how to use her Gift without hurting herself or others or engendering the mind-shattering nightmares that had troubled her for so long (she dropped a grateful hand to the mane of Whiteblaze, a gesture that had already become second nature).
    The descent into the valley proved every bit as slippery and treacherous as the Lady had warned. No lives were lost during the long hours of cautious descent that followed, but the Lady was several times called to Heal sprains and broken bones from those who had slipped on the ice and, in one instance, tumbled twenty feet from one switchback of the trail to the next. Mara longed to help, but without any urns of magic at hand her only option would have been to draw magic from Whiteblaze or the Lady’s wolves, or members of the Lady’s Cadre,