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

forgive me?”
    For a moment Prella’s face remained unreadable; then a small smile flickered. “Of course I will,” she said. She looked a little shamefaced all of a sudden. “I shouldn’t have taken it so hard. It was just . . . unexpected.”
    Mara looked past Prella at Kirika, staring coldly at Mara through narrowed eyes. There was still no love lost there.
She probably thinks I’m trying to steal her only friend away from her
, Mara thought.
Well, maybe I can put her mind at ease
. She stood up, though she’d just sat down. “Well, I’ll . . . see you around, Prella,” Mara said. “You too, Kirika.”
    â€œSee you,” Prella said, sounding a little puzzled by her abrupt departure.
    Kirika said nothing, but Mara thought she could still feel the other girl’s stare as she wove her way across the Grand Chamber.
    More days slipped by. And then finally, almost a month after Chell’s arrival, on a night when a howling wind lashed snow around the cliffs and rattled the shutters on every window, Catilla finally summoned her.
    The Commander looked even frailer than last time: new lines on a face already as wrinkled as an old apple, skin chalky except for the dark shadows under her eyes. She motioned Mara to her bedside. “A message has come from Tamita,” she said, voice hoarse. “Grelda, please.”
    The Healer gave Mara a dark look, but took up a small square of paper from the table by Catilla’s bed. “Midnight, thirteenth of Winterwhite. Beneath the skylight,” she read, then looked up. “That’s it.”
    â€œYou understand, child?” Catilla said.
    I’m not a child
, Mara thought automatically, but distantly, because all her thoughts were focused on that message.
    Beneath the skylight. Her old room.
    Home.
    â€œYes,” she said. “I understand.”
    â€¢Â Â â€¢Â Â â€¢
    Two days later, on the morning of the seventh of Winterwhite, Mara sat astride the sleek chestnut mare that had become her favorite horse in the Secret City stables—not that that was saying much. Mara’s riding skills had improved somewhat with a few more weeks of practice, but she still envied Edrik’s comfortable way with the animals—a skill apparently shared by Chell who, despite the black hood encasing his head, sat at ease astride his bay mare. Keltan hadn’t had much more riding practice than she had, but even he, atop a rangy gray gelding, looked far more comfortable than she felt.
    Mara’s mare gave her a look over her shoulder as if to say, “You again? Are you going to stay on this time?”
    â€œI’ll do my best,” Mara told the animal. Keltan gave her a sidelong look.
    â€œTalking to horses is just a little . . . odd,” he said.
    â€œNot as odd as naming yourself after one,” Mara replied sweetly. Keltan laughed.
    They took the “back door” path up to the top of the cliff, first riding along the same beach Mara had walked just before discovering Chell, then up the narrow defile in the cliff face while the ocean thundered behind them, the waves today unsettled by the echoes of some storm far out at sea. At the top, they rode for several minutes past corrals, pastures, and grain fields before plunging into forest.
    Even though she
wasn’t
blindfolded, Mara suspected she would have had no more luck than Chell finding her way back to the Secret City if Edrik were not with them. It seemed that every time she left or returned to the place it was by a different route.
    Of course, on at least two occasions she’d been unconscious during the final parts of the journey, so she supposed she had some excuse for not having it fixed firmly in her mind. But even when she was awake and alert, every bit of the forest looked the same as every other, as far as she could tell: the same dark trees, the same snow-laden branches, the same