Read Online The Realms of the Gods by Tamora Pierce - Free Book Online

with stormy gray hair and a simple gray dress. Within a breath, she changed. Her skin went yellow, her hair became twigs, her body sprouted a mass of tentacles. That, too, lasted briefly. She never kept one shape for long, but shifted constantly from patchwork to patchwork in combinations of things that lived and things that did not. Pincers grew on a cheetah’s forequarters; a cow’s head and a man’s legs were attached. Just to look at the changing thing made Daine’s stomach roll.
    The creature lurched to the side, diving for the opening between the Wave Walker and the Black God; white fire appeared, to form a dome between gods and theircaptive. Half lion, half crone, she dropped and crawled for the gap between the Thief and the Smith, only to retreat howling after she touched the barrier.
    â€œWhy don’t they kill her?” Daine asked. “They just wear themselves out holding her in their circle, and she doesn’t seem to weaken at all.”
    â€œThey are forbidden to, as she is forbidden to slay them,” Rattail explained. “They can imprison and enslave each other, but Father Universe and Mother Fire, who made them all, will not let their children murder a sibling.”
    The scene rippled like pond water and dissolved before her. Daine was flying backward now, over a broad, perfectly flat plain. Looking around, wondering what had happened to the circle and the shifting monster, she discovered a lone figure, Gainel. A gale whipped his shirt and breeches. He reached one hand out to her. A balance hung from his white fingers.
    A crack opened under the Dream King’s feet. His left foot rested on that flat and barren floor. His right was planted to the ankle in gray-green muck that boiled and twisted.
    Gainel vanished when Daine opened her eyes.
    â€œI have such peculiar dreams here,” she complained to the ceiling. “Seemingly the Dream King wants me to know something, but why? Given my druthers, I’d druther have a good sleep.” She sighed and rolled out of bed, to hit the floor with a bang. The floor was comfortingly solid.
    Her old strength was returning faster than it had the day before. She tried to puzzle out the rest of her dream as she made her bed, cleaned her face and teeth, and brushed a multitude of tangles out of her hair. At least she felt like her old self for the first time in days, even if she couldn’t decide what Gainel meant.
    The items in her room had been added to during the night. She found boots and a belt. On a chair lay neatstacks of folded breeches, shirts, loincloths, stockings, and breast bands, all in her favorite colors. Unlike her dream, Daine could read Sarra’s message easily. Her mother had provided as if Daine would spend the rest of her life here. She would not be happy when Daine insisted upon leaving.
    Daine needed to clear her head to prepare a campaign against her parents. Putting on yesterday’s dress, she gathered clean garments, towels, and brush, and went into the main room. Broad Foot was there, nibbling a bunch of grapes on the counter.
    â€œIs there a place I can swim?” she asked. “My head feels like mush.”
    The duckmole’s eyes lit. “There’s the pond where I stay when I am here,” he replied eagerly. “It’s clean and quiet, and not too far. Come on.”
    Daine followed. After a few minutes’ walk along a forest trail, they reached a very broad pond, almost a small lake, set just below a ridge crowned with brambles. Her guide plunged in as soon as they reached the water. Finding a cluster of broad, flat-topped rocks on the pond’s rim, Daine put her things on them and began to strip off her clothes.
    The duckmole surfaced, a frog sticking out of his bill, and swallowed his meal. “Hurry up,” he urged. Daine wondered if the meal that he’d just eaten was a god, too. Would it be reborn, as her father claimed the hare had been?
    As if to