Rival Magic by Deva Fagan

Author:Deva Fagan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atheneum Books for Young Readers
Published: 2020-04-20T16:00:00+00:00

12

WE LEFT THE MOUNTAIN the next morning. As we made our goodbyes outside the cottage, I stole quick glances at Moppe, wondering if she’d slept as miserably as I had. My dreams had been full of birds with sharp silver beaks and my brother’s voice calling to me from some far place I could never reach. Even though we’d left the Forest of Silent Fears behind, my nightmares traveled with me.

Had I made the right decision? Now I might never learn the truth about what my brother was doing in the Forest of Silent Fears. And I’d never speak his name again, not even in the quiet of my own thoughts.

But he would have wanted me to choose the crown. He loved Medasia. He used to beg our grandfather—the dye merchant’s son who had charmed my Regian grandmother at that fish market long ago—to tell him stories about Queen Meda and her heirs. I only remembered them dimly. Tales of moonlit hunts, magical pools that reflected only truth, wise kings who sent their daughters on perilous quests to prove their bravery and strength. Mother, of course, would shush him at once, the moment she caught him “prattling on” about fairy tales.

My brother had even performed with some of his actor friends at the old amphitheater in the hills above Port Meda. They’d put on a set of short plays in the old style, using the same grotesquely beautiful masks the first Medasians had worn in their sacred theater.

It only made the broken-glass feeling in my chest more piercingly sharp, knowing that someone who loved Medasia had been murdered by the Liberationists who claimed to be setting it free. No, I had made the right choice. My brother wouldn’t want the crown falling into the hands of Captain Porphyra or any of her vicious band. I had to make sure I got it first. Then we could set everything back to rights and prevent any further bloodshed.

“Best go straight down the south road,” said Aya, as she and the two little girls prepared to wave us off. “That will take you to Mermaid Rock.”

“I always thought the merfolk were just a story,” I said.

“You mean like voice-stealing monsters and enchanted echoes?” said Moppe.

She had a point. I certainly hoped the merfolk were real, considering they were our only lead on finding the crown. But the thought of having to go into the water…

There was no sense worrying about it until we were there. Right now, I needed to focus on getting down the mountain again in one piece, and without being petrified by another of those cursed statues. Whoever had sent the others would not have given up. They’d still be hunting us. They might even follow us here, to Moppe’s family. We had to get moving, and soon.

“Stay strong, Agamopa,” said Moppe’s grandmother. She pressed her thumb lightly to her granddaughter’s forehead, tracing a line along her bare brow. She folded Moppe into her arms for a long hug, whispering something in her ear I couldn’t make out, then finally released her and turned to me.

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.