Poisoned Blade by Kate Elliott

Author:Kate Elliott [Elliott, Kate]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Juvenile Fiction / Fantasy & Magic, Juvenile Fiction / Action & Adventure / Survival Stories, Juvenile Fiction / Girls & Women, Juvenile Fiction / Love & Romance, Juvenile Fiction / Social Issues / Prejudice & Racism, Juvenile Fiction / Social Issues / Self-Esteem & Self-Reliance, Juvenile Fiction / Sports & Recreation / General
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Published: 2016-08-01T23:00:00+00:00

16

We leave before dawn, while it’s still cool, in an impressive column of twenty-four cargo wagons carrying dates, natron, and gold, eight supply wagons for our own needs, four carriages, and the troop of Garon soldiers under the command of Captain Neartos. Where the road climbs steeply out of the oasis our pace slows to such a crawl that I swing down to walk alongside, then stop to look back the way we came. Moonlight bathes Akheres Lake in a sheen like pearls ground into gauze and cast over its waters. All lies eerily still except for pinpricks of lamps on the town walls.

I can almost hear the land breathe as a brush of wind stirs dust on the road like a mirror of my own restlessness. Am I both Patron and Commoner, or am I neither? I no longer know. Maybe a mule is a creature with no home, only a long road ahead and a doubled burden to haul.

“Jes?” Mis trots toward me out of the shadows. The lantern hanging from the back of the last wagon in the line sways, its light receding up toward the high desert plateau above us. “Are you coming? Ugh, I drank too much.”

She bends over, hands on knees, and coughs up bile. I try not to laugh but I do anyway as I slap her on the butt.

“Don’t you know better by now?”

She moans, spitting one last time, then falls in beside me as we stride after the wagons. “Where did you go last night, anyway? You have the most peculiar habit of running off and then not coming back for the longest time.”

An awkward silence between us grinds as harshly as the wheels on the road. I have an answer prepared but I’m so tired of lying to the people I should trust. Yet I can’t endanger her by telling her the truth, just as I can’t risk that she might accidentally blurt out the truth at the wrong time. “It turns out that the adversary Henta has an uncle who had met my father years ago when he was stationed in the desert. It was a chance for me to hear a few stories.”

I wait, wondering if she’ll bite. Her silence drags on so long I don’t dare glance at her.

“Do you miss him?” she asks, one of the perceptive questions I’ve come to expect from her.

“Yes.”

“I hope you don’t mind my saying so, Jes. Please don’t take offense. But it’s just so odd, knowing a Patron man like him acknowledged you and raised you.”

“He did the best he knew how,” I say, remembering Mother’s words. “And I’m not offended.”

As our feet crunch on the surface of the road and dust spits into our faces, I feel a peculiar sort of peace. For all that I struggle with who I am and where I belong, my parents did their best to make a space for us girls in the world. They wanted me, and my sisters, and maybe it is only now that I can recognize how much that means.

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