Read Online Traitor's Son: The Raven Duet Book #2 by Hilari Bell - Free Book Online
Authors: Hilari Bell
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whenever he had time.
His school councilors were nagging him to start making career choices—and when Jase named his only preference, they promptly tried to discourage him with the amount of math and physics you had to know for automotive design. And it wasn’t like Jase’s other grades were better than the solid B– he got in math and science. He was never sure if they tried to discourage him because his father had hinted that he wanted his son to do something else, or if it was simply that graduates of Murie Prep weren’t supposed to become
mechanics.
Eventually the boat chugged into the dock, and Jase gathered up his stuff and disembarked. The area around the resort was thoroughly familiar, and his overnight bag wasn’t heavy. He ignored the sprawling timber-and-glass “lodges” scattered up the hillside, and took the path that ran beside the tram track. Past the golf course—empty in this weather—and around a jutting slope to what the resort called an Authentic Alaska Native Village. The local Ananut called it the Disney Village—when they didn’t call it something worse.
No one lived in any of the houses, of course, but even in the rain a few tourists wandered from one craft demonstration to the next, and all the shops were open. Jase considered stopping at the coffee shop, but with any luck his grandmother would be home to let him in and feed him. And maybe persuade his grandfather to talk to him calmly, for once, instead of demanding that Jase take sides. In a fight that had begun when he was three, and been settled completely by the time he was seven. His father had won. His grandfather lost. It was time they both got over it.
Past the Disney Village the graveled path gave way to a rocky muddy trail, but it wasn’t narrow or brushed over. Most of the women from the real village and a lot of the men—all of them, when they weren’t allowed to fish—worked for the resort in some capacity.
It had kept the real village alive, his father said. When his father was young, half the houses had been abandoned, with the village meetinghouse all but falling apart. Now . . . Well, it wasn’t the upper slope of Flattop Mountain, but the small weathered houses were in good repair. Some even had modern glass in their windows, though the old glass wasn’t that bad. One of Jase’s earliest memories was lying on the floor in his grandparents’ living room, surrounded by toys, with the heat of the sun streaming through on his back in a way polarizing glass never permitted.
His grandfather claimed the resort had completed the destruction of the Ananut Way of Life. It might even be true, at least in part. There were new restrictions on hunting and fishing, but it was a hunting/fishing resort! They had to offer their guests the best sport, in the best seasons.
The new village house, which the resort had built as part of the agreement his father had negotiated, had not only modern glass, but enough room for all the Ananut Corporation’s offices, as well as the big meeting hall. The villagers must finally have accepted it, because as Jase passed he noticed well-tended flower beds around it, which couldn’t have been planted by resort-paid gardeners. After the resort’s first attempts to “help out in the local community” had been so furiously rejected, they’d fulfilled their contracts, but otherwise left “the locals” on their own.
But whatever the Ananut felt about the resort-provided village house, they hadn’t changed their opinion of the deal that produced it. The rain was keeping people inside, so Jase had to ignore only a few hostile glares as he made his way down the street to his grandmother’s house.
Her
house, by ancient Ananut tradition, so if she was home his grandfather would have to let Jase in. If Jase told the old man he’d come seeking a shaman’s advice, surely a shaman couldn’t turn him away.
As he stepped onto the crumbling concrete walk, his grandfather came out and stood on
His school councilors were nagging him to start making career choices—and when Jase named his only preference, they promptly tried to discourage him with the amount of math and physics you had to know for automotive design. And it wasn’t like Jase’s other grades were better than the solid B– he got in math and science. He was never sure if they tried to discourage him because his father had hinted that he wanted his son to do something else, or if it was simply that graduates of Murie Prep weren’t supposed to become
mechanics.
Eventually the boat chugged into the dock, and Jase gathered up his stuff and disembarked. The area around the resort was thoroughly familiar, and his overnight bag wasn’t heavy. He ignored the sprawling timber-and-glass “lodges” scattered up the hillside, and took the path that ran beside the tram track. Past the golf course—empty in this weather—and around a jutting slope to what the resort called an Authentic Alaska Native Village. The local Ananut called it the Disney Village—when they didn’t call it something worse.
No one lived in any of the houses, of course, but even in the rain a few tourists wandered from one craft demonstration to the next, and all the shops were open. Jase considered stopping at the coffee shop, but with any luck his grandmother would be home to let him in and feed him. And maybe persuade his grandfather to talk to him calmly, for once, instead of demanding that Jase take sides. In a fight that had begun when he was three, and been settled completely by the time he was seven. His father had won. His grandfather lost. It was time they both got over it.
Past the Disney Village the graveled path gave way to a rocky muddy trail, but it wasn’t narrow or brushed over. Most of the women from the real village and a lot of the men—all of them, when they weren’t allowed to fish—worked for the resort in some capacity.
It had kept the real village alive, his father said. When his father was young, half the houses had been abandoned, with the village meetinghouse all but falling apart. Now . . . Well, it wasn’t the upper slope of Flattop Mountain, but the small weathered houses were in good repair. Some even had modern glass in their windows, though the old glass wasn’t that bad. One of Jase’s earliest memories was lying on the floor in his grandparents’ living room, surrounded by toys, with the heat of the sun streaming through on his back in a way polarizing glass never permitted.
His grandfather claimed the resort had completed the destruction of the Ananut Way of Life. It might even be true, at least in part. There were new restrictions on hunting and fishing, but it was a hunting/fishing resort! They had to offer their guests the best sport, in the best seasons.
The new village house, which the resort had built as part of the agreement his father had negotiated, had not only modern glass, but enough room for all the Ananut Corporation’s offices, as well as the big meeting hall. The villagers must finally have accepted it, because as Jase passed he noticed well-tended flower beds around it, which couldn’t have been planted by resort-paid gardeners. After the resort’s first attempts to “help out in the local community” had been so furiously rejected, they’d fulfilled their contracts, but otherwise left “the locals” on their own.
But whatever the Ananut felt about the resort-provided village house, they hadn’t changed their opinion of the deal that produced it. The rain was keeping people inside, so Jase had to ignore only a few hostile glares as he made his way down the street to his grandmother’s house.
Her
house, by ancient Ananut tradition, so if she was home his grandfather would have to let Jase in. If Jase told the old man he’d come seeking a shaman’s advice, surely a shaman couldn’t turn him away.
As he stepped onto the crumbling concrete walk, his grandfather came out and stood on
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