The Castle Behind Thorns by Merrie Haskell

Author:Merrie Haskell [Haskell, Merrie]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9780062008190
Google: CSauAgAAQBAJ
Amazon: 0062008196
Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books
Published: 2014-05-27T07:00:00+00:00

20

Falcon

SAND LURCHED TO HIS FEET AND MADE FOR THE door. He strode through the falling rain with grim purpose.

The chapel sounded deathly silent after the weather outside, and his boot steps echoed loudly against the stone vaults overhead. It wasn’t a very big chapel and in just a few moments, he was crossing himself and opening the reliquary.

He stared in horror at the heart moving inside the box. He dropped to his knees before the altar.

Perrotte’s footsteps sounded behind him. He waited. Her hand touched his shoulder.

He was quiet, thinking before he spoke. He didn’t want to speak of this, actually, but he knew he must.

“Magic should have some purpose to it,” he said. “There’s no purpose in what has happened to this heart.”

“I think mending is your magic’s purpose, Sand.” She stood beside him, staring down at the relic.

“So, I’m some sort of witch? Who made a heart beat inside a silver box?”

“You really think you’re a witch, and not someone blessed by a saint?”

“Blessed?” His voice cracked on the word and he stood up.

She shrugged. “It doesn’t really matter to me.”

He drew back. “I’m sorry,” he said stiffly. “I thought you would care.”

“Oh, Sand, that’s not what I meant! I do care. I just . . . I don’t think your mending magic is evil, if that’s what you’re worried about, but I meant that it doesn’t matter. You are good. You do good things. My guess is . . . I mean . . .” She frowned, and stared at her hands for a moment, before saying, “Well, you know, strange things happen to saints before they’re made saints.”

A laugh escaped him in one big bark. “I’m hardly pious enough for sainthood.”

She shrugged, smiling a little. “Stranger things have happened.”

“I don’t like that notion. I aim to be a smith. And have a family someday.”

Now it was Perrotte’s turn to laugh. “I said ‘saint,’ not ‘monk.’ And I thought you were going to Paris to university, to please your father? Don’t most men who go to university end up priests?”

“Some do. And I’m going. But I’m going to study medicine, not theology.” He felt muted and flat: he’d figured out how to make the best of that bad situation, but learning to heal people still wasn’t blacksmithing.

“If we get free of here,” Perrotte pointed out. “So far, the thorns are winning.”

Sand went to the chapel door to stare out at the rain. From the ground level of the inner courtyard he couldn’t see the thorns. “I prayed at Saint Melor’s shrine the night before I woke here.”

“Saint Melor, patron of my father’s family, and Sainte Trifine, patron of my mother’s family,” Perrotte said. “Maybe you should mend Melor’s skull and see if it has answers for you.”

Sand glared at her—then over her head, caught sight of the colored glass windows depicting Saint Melor’s life. The glass was cracked, and some of it was missing—but most of the story was there.

Perrotte turned to see where Sand was staring. “Saint Melor’s father was Saint Meliau.

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