Quiver by Stephanie Spinner

Author:Stephanie Spinner
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9780307433657
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2007-12-17T23:00:00+00:00

FOURTEEN

I felt as cold and vaporous as a shade, as if I were hovering outside myself, watching to see what the girl at the table would do.

I saw her raising her arms to Artemis in a frenzied plea for help.

I saw her loose an arrow that pierced the king’s brittle chest, drawing blood and yellow bile.

I saw her flee with her hound into the deepest recesses of Arcadia, as if pursued by the Furies.

Then the moment passed, and I was sitting there dully, stunned into silence by my father’s pronouncement.

“Help me up,” he ordered Nephele. She gave me a sad, surreptitious smile before leading him away.

Eventually I returned to my chamber and sat down heavily on the bed. Aura joined me, and I stroked her mouse-colored coat. When she lay down, making little noises of contentment, I settled beside her and recalled my dream of the goddess. Once again, she told me to avoid marriage. Once again, I understood that despite her playful manner, she meant me to obey her, and I resolved to do just that.

But my father was commanding me to marry.

My eyes flew open, and I felt the raw terror of a rabbit in a snare. I told myself that Artemis would help me, that she would send me a dream, and the terror subsided.

As I had done at Gortys, I knelt and prayed for her guidance. Then, becalmed, I slept.

The sky was still dark when I woke. I searched my mind for some sign from the goddess, but all I saw was a riderless horse, head bowed, on its way to the palace. It was a melancholy image I did not understand.

Castor had once told me to think of disappointment as rain or fog, weather of the mind that would inevitably pass. I was ten years old and not yet allowed to hunt with the men, though I could shoot as well as any of them, and outrun them, too. I had cried bitter tears, taking little comfort from his words, yet I had never forgotten them. Now they gave me a kind of bleak solace.

“I will run,” I decided. Stretching cautiously, I found that I was stiff, but no longer aching. It would be good to leave the palace.

My old chiton was on the claw-foot table, folded neatly. It had become very clean—Entella’s work, no doubt. “It will not be clean for long,” I thought, putting it on.

After I persuaded Aura to leave the bed, we crept through the darkness, passing one snoring guard in the throne room and another in the courtyard. Beyond the dining chamber were more hallways, and rows of store-rooms and kitchens. Then we were outside again, this time at the back of the palace. Two little kitchen maids, curled up near the hearth, stirred as we walked by, but did not waken.

A sliver of moon hung low in the sky, offering the quietest possible greeting. An owl hooted, once.

A few of the horses, tethered to a line under an open shed, raised their heads and nickered.

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