Shaper's Daughter by Rachel Devenish Ford

Author:Rachel Devenish Ford [Ford, Rachel Devenish]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Small Seed Press

Chapter 16

Jabari’s aim was off. He stared blearily at the target, the area scattered with arrows that had pinged off the target, or hit the wrong bar. The targets were long, like trees, painted with dots that Jabari could usually hit, one after another, barely stopping to pause. He had always had a gift for true aim. But his nights had become crazy ever since he started having the dreams, and he wasn’t sleeping.

* * *

He had never dreamed at night, or at least he never remembered his dreams. His mother was a dreamer who sometimes had foretelling, but Jabari usually fell asleep and was dead to the world within minutes, sleeping a dreamless sleep and waking up feeling great. Things had changed. Over the last weeks, he had been dreaming every night. Night after night he woke up sweating when the sky was still dark, and owls swept through the trees. The dreams often started out differently, but the same one woke him up at the end. He sometimes went up to the rooftop of the palace to lie on the cool stone and let the bats and owls fly over him, watching the stars and waiting for the dream to fade. He was tired in the mornings now. What was happening to him? He wished that he could get back to being normal.

He walked to the target and picked arrows out of the grass. The earth was parched and the morning was already hot, so that moisture beaded on the back of his neck and back and his hands were slippery. He jammed the arrows back into his quiver, slung it over his back, and slowly walked back to the shooting area. The morning was just beginning; people starting to be up and around, doing the morning work. The birds called to one another, and he could hear the coffee sellers outside the palace, and the cooks in the kitchen calling out orders.

Jabari had always loved mornings at the palace. Everybody knew what they needed to do, they flowed back and forth, full of hope for the day. He loved seeing the housekeepers with their brooms in the courtyard, shaking out rugs, or the gardeners climbing trees to pick fruit, beginning the first watering cycle of the day. Growing up in the palace had been beautiful, he realized, as a thought of what Isika’s mornings might have been like crossed his mind.

He stood with his feet planted and took aim at the target. He aimed for the circle on the very top, but his arrow went slightly shy of it. It thudded into the tree behind the target. What was wrong with him today? He gritted his teeth and shot arrow after arrow. Somewhere around the third or fourth arrow he began to get his skills back, and the arrows thudded into the centers of the painted circles. He sighed with relief. With the Gariah force in their front yard, Jabari couldn’t afford to lose his archery gift. The sun was gaining heat, despite the smoky haze that covered the city.

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