Given to the Sea by Mindy McGinnis

Author:Mindy McGinnis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
Published: 2017-03-01T11:02:01+00:00

Vincent’s voice is the first to break through, and I reach for him instinctively, the only familiar person in the room. His fingers close around mine before my eyes are open, and I bear it for a few moments before pulling away and wiping my fingers on the soft blanket of my bed.

“Khosa? Can you hear me?”

I nod, but my eyes feel like heavy stones, my skull a watery jam hardly capable of supporting them. My hands go to my temples, and I make a sound like a kitten without a mother.

“You’re either the best shot in the kingdom, or the most ruthless man in it,” Vincent says, and I peer through my fingers to see my guards, no longer smug and smirking, but pale and shaking under Vincent’s glare.

“If I may, young prince.” Cathon’s voice is thick, blood still coating his chin. “The guard was the quickest thinker among us. If he hadn’t shot her, Khosa would’ve cleared the window. And while an arrow ran the risk of killing her, the fall on the other side left nothing to chance.”

“It’s true, sir,” one guard says. “She wasn’t stopping for anything. I’ve sat in that room with her day in and out, not seen a single bit of violence. Then she breaks a Scribe’s nose and climbs a bookcase like a cat up a tree. There was a spool of the stuff they use to bind the books, so I tied an end to an arrow and—”

“And you shot her.” Vincent says, his tone making it clear what he thinks of that.

The guard’s chin goes up. “I can place an arrow.”

“That he can,” I say, finding my voice. “My head hurts worse than the wound.”

“It didn’t nick a bone, slipped right through flesh,” a new voice says, and I turn my head to see a woman rolling a clean bandage by my bedside. “You don’t hurt much now because I put a bit of rankflower salve on it. Will take the kick out of any pain that ails you, though not much I can do for your head, dearie, I’m sorry. That hurt’s on the inside, nowhere I can get to without cracking your skull apart, which I don’t think Stille would thank me for.”

I angle my head but can’t quite see the arrow wound just below my clavicle, but the poultice carries a distinctive aroma.

“I thank you,” I say to the healer. “And you,” I add, nodding to the guard, despite the pain it causes me. “He saved my life,” I tell Vincent, and the scowl that has been etched on his face since I opened my eyes lightens slightly.

“And I’m sorry about your nose,” I add to Cathon, who waves away the apology.

“How many Scribes can say they’ve had their nose broken by a Given?” he says. “I may find my name written in a book one day.”

“If anyone lives long enough to write it,” I hear a guard mutter as Vincent waves everyone out of my room.

“What did he mean by that?” I ask Vincent when the door closes behind them.

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