Coronets and Steel by Sherwood Smith

Author:Sherwood Smith
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Penguin Group USA, Inc.
Published: 2010-08-02T22:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-FOUR

IT SEEMED A minute later Mina was shaking my shoulder. The cottage was dimly lit by a candle on the floor. Mina had prepared hot porridge sweetened with honey, and as we eased out into the chill night air she pressed a warm cloth-wrapped package into my hand.

“Bread and good cheese,” she whispered as she walked down the stone steps to where a dilapidated World War I era truck waited. “Eat this at dawn. God bless you, child.”

“And you,” I said awkwardly, bending down to kiss her forehead. “Thanks a thousand times.”

“Wrap up warm now, and stay under the blankets.”

Pavel was nothing more than a silent, bulky shadow. Mina waited as I climbed onto the truck bed and wedged myself between baskets of produce and bales of sheep’s wool, and other goods difficult to make out in the darkness. Pavel’s job, besides blacksmith and mechanic, was trader for the whole village once a week in the open air market in lower Riev.

I settled on folded quilts, and someone laid a heavy rug over me. With a lumbering lurch, the truck began to move. Pavel killed the engine. Lulled by the slow bumping of the old tires as Pavel expertly coasted the vehicle down the winding mountain, I drifted into a drowsing sleep.

I woke when the engine kicked in. As it putt-putted us across the floor of the valley, I fell back asleep.

When I woke, darkness had barely lifted. There were the familiar mounds of the rock quarry: we were on the outskirts of the city.

The engine stopped when we reached the open market, where people were busy setting up stalls and chatting. I scrambled off the truck bed. Pavel wasn’t in view, but I figured he’d prefer not to find me at all than to hear thanks from someone he didn’t even know, so I slipped between the flimsy barriers of two booths. The city proper began on the other side of the row of wagons and ancient, decrepit vehicles, with a long horse picket beyond; farmers still drove wagons.

Now that I knew where I was, I had to figure out how to get to Aunt Sisi’s safely—all the way at the other end of the city.

I chose the narrowest streets and alleys I could find, avoiding the main streets, which were full of people heading down to the market. I had no idea whether a search was going on in Riev as well as on Devil’s Mountain, and if so, what the searchers looked like. I also did not know if the Vigilzhi were on Alec’s side or Tony’s. Or which side might mean trouble for Yours T.

As I slunk across a main street, I remembered those guys watching me at the wedding reception. If there was a search, that would be the first place they’d check. So I wasn’t going anywhere near the inn.

At least I had something to eat.

I ducked into a narrow, inset doorway with a laughing gargoyle carved over the archway. I stared up at

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