Obsidian and Stars by Julie Eshbaugh

Author:Julie Eshbaugh
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2017-05-11T04:00:00+00:00

SEVENTEEN

Lees raises her hands above her head and calls out. “Mya Mya Mya!” Her voice rolls like a wave, a ripple of sound expanding over the trees. “You found us!”

And though relief washes over me at the sight of her, my stomach twists into knots at the sound of her voice. She is loud and she is high in the air, her voice carrying on the breeze, uninterrupted by the trees below.

It’s likely that the sound of my name has been carried far enough to reach Dora and Anki. Maybe far enough to reach Thern and Pada, too. A shiver runs over me as I realize I have no idea where those two are. Perhaps they are quite close, and will emerge from the trees at any moment.

“And look who you’ve brought with you,” Lees continues, her hand sweeping toward Morsk. “My future betrothed.” Though Lees’s words are mocking, there’s a quaver in her voice. She had expected me to be alone, but here I am with this group of four. I’m sure she’s surprised to see anyone with me at all, but to see Morsk must be particularly alarming to her. “Have you come with my brother to try to drag me back? Or has Chev sent you to say that he has changed his mind?”

These last words—so innocent and terrible—tear a hole in my heart.

I will have to tell her. I will have to be the one who tells her that her brother came here to give her whatever she wanted, as long as she came home to him and to her clan. And then I will have to tell her that he is dead.

“You need to come down,” I call, yelling to be heard over the waterfall. I stride toward her, skirting the edge of the lake, trying to get closer so our words are more private. The others follow. I almost tell them to stay under the cover of the trees, but I think better of it. It makes more sense for us all to stay together. “There are things happening. Things I need to tell you—”

“But I want you to come up here!”

“We need to go!”

I watch her as she begins to scramble down, though Noni stays right where she is. The rock is steep, but handholds and ledges are plentiful, and she makes the climb appear easy. Still, the sight of her clinging to such a sheer face makes it hard for me to breathe. She stops about halfway up from the bottom and calls out again.

“You should climb up! There’s a cavern at the top that leads to a passageway through the rock. I want to show you!”

A passageway through the rock . . . Could it lead to the other side of these cliffs—the side that faces the sea? Could it lead us closer to our camp on the beach?

“What kind of passageway? Where does it go?”

“I’m not sure—we didn’t crawl the whole way through. But light comes in from the other side.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.