Beneath the Thirteen Moons by Kathryne Kennedy

Author:Kathryne Kennedy
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Sourcebooks, Inc.

Korl sat in the stern, his knuckles white where they gripped the sides of the craft. “I command you to let me take off this blindfold.”

Mahri grinned and had to shout to be heard over the roar of water. “All right, but remember, you asked to see this.”

They’d almost reached her most secret place, the place that she thought of as all her own, where she’d taken no one else before. Not even Brez. But in order to get there she’d had to chew zabba and pole with her utmost skill, and even then they’d still almost capsized in the rough waters.

Mahri danced from one side of the boat to the other, red hair sodden from spray and whipping around her face, muscles tense and rippling as she pushed against one obstacle after another. Humps of seashell, backs of wide-mouth skulkers, dead limbs and gnarled roots threatened her small craft and yet allowed her to pole against them to change direction. She didn’t have time to hold on, the water flung them through the wide channel with a speed that made her skin tingle. The deck bucked and dropped beneath her feet so that at times she hung suspended in air, nothing but her bone pole to hang onto, nothing but skill and timing allowing her to stay in the boat.

She whooped and hollered while she fought the current. Such terror, such excitement… such fun!

Korl stared at her as if she were a madwoman. Jaja shrieked from somewhere beneath the collapsed tent. Mahri ignored them both, ready for what came next.

The boat shot over the edge of a drop off, hung suspended for a split second of infinity, then plopped back into the water with a gut-wrenching splash.

Mahri glanced around and sighed with relief. It hadn’t changed.

The roar of white water could still be heard above them, yet somehow muted now by the gentle waterfalls that surrounded this small pool of calm. Insects skittered along the mirror-like surface, purfrogs basked in the sun atop pallets of green moss pads, and swanies paddled gracefully along, stretching their long necks and singing their “tra-lee-lee” songs to each other.

Korl blinked. “How?” he managed to ask.

Mahri shrugged. “The only thing I can figure is that this entire channel is over one large tree root, or maybe a collection of dead ones. So there are dips that create these pools and we’re below the surface of the natural sea right now. Of course, I’m just an ignorant water-rat, so I can only guess.”

Korl raised his chin and gave her a look that said he felt the barb but it was beneath his dignity to respond to it. “The sea is flat, so there aren’t many places that could produce these magnificent waterfalls. We have fountains in the palace gardens, though, that create the same effect.”

Mahri flushed. He knew how to deliver a backhanded compliment, all right. “What about flutterflies?”

“My cousin has a collection he’s quite vain of.” Korl shrugged. “But they’re common enough insects. Why?”

“The swamps have their own kinds of gardens.

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