Read Online Raven's Shadow by Patricia Briggs - Free Book Online

his joints broke through his fearsome control. He’d known the risk.
    In one of those things possible only in dreams, Arvage stood beside her while her father and brothers buried him.
    â€œIt is our task to take care of them or die,” he told her. “Our purpose is to keep the shadows at bay for the solsenti who are helpless against them. This is a Raven’s task before us, and I am Raven—as are you. You aren’t old enough and I am too old, but we do as we must.”
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    Tier hadn’t lived in the comfortable safety of the village long enough to sleep through small noises in the night. He’d heard Seraph go out, as she often did, and he’d gone back to sleep afterward. But he’d awakened again.
    He waited for the noise to repeat itself, and when it did he pulled on his pants and slipped out his window to the garden where Seraph whimpered in the helpless throes of a nightmare.
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    The man was from the Clan of Gilarmist the Fat, running a message to another clan. He’d flirted with Seraph’s oldest sister and died in the night. Her sister died the next morning, drowning in the fluid that they couldn’t keep from filling her lungs.
    By the time four days had passed only Seraph and her brother Ushireh were left to bury the dead. Ushireh worked until he passed out. She’d been so afraid that he was dead, too; it had taken her a long time to convince herself that he was only unconscious. She’d dragged him away from the dead they’d gathered together in the center of the camp, then she’d burned it all—camp and bodies alike. It had been weeks before she could work enough magic to light a fire.
    When she managed it at last, Ushireh’s body sat up in the pyre, and his head turned until he could fix his glowing eyes on her. Seraph shrank back and tried to close her eyes. As if in death he’d acquired the magic he’d so envied her in life, his will kept her from looking away from him.
    â€œYou left me,” he said. “You left your duty. You cannot run forever, Seraph, Raven of the Clan of Isolda the Silent.”
    She awoke with a gasp and a cry and was gathered into warm arms and rocked gently.
    â€œShh,” said Tier, “it was a dream. You’re safe.”
    She buried her head in his shoulder and gave up a lifetime of self-control to sob raggedly against him. “I can’t do it,” she said. “I don’t want to be a Traveler. They all die, and I have to burn them and bury them. I’m so tired of death and duty. I want . . . I want . . .” What she wanted was tied away from her in strands of guilt and duty, but she found a fair approximation of it in the safety of Tier’s arms.
    â€œShh,” he said. “You don’t have to go if you don’t want to.”
    His words passed over and around her, the sense lost to her grief and guilt, but the sound of his voice comforted her.
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    From the third of the three windows that looked out into the garden, Alinath watched her brother hold the witch he’d brought home and she clenched her fists before she turned away.
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    When the worst of it had passed, embarrassment made Seraph turn away and wipe her face with the corner of the blanket.
    â€œSorry,” she muttered. “It was a nightmare.”
    â€œAh,” said Tier as he let her pull away from him. “It sounded worse than that to me.”
    She shrugged, not looking at him. “Memories make the worst nightmares, my father always said.”
    â€œYou don’t have to go find another clan,” he said. “You can stay here.”
    She tried to stifle her involuntary laugh. It wouldn’t be polite to disparage the hospitality of his family. “No, I can’t. Thank you. But no.”
    â€œI can’t leave now,” said Tier. “But I fear it won’t be long. Mother complains and frets until it’s hard to believe that