The Healer Princess (Princess of the Seven Suns Book 1) by Amy Little

Author:Amy Little [Little, Amy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: UNKNOWN
Published: 2017-05-13T22:00:00+00:00

As she passed the fountain, the water spurting out of the dolphin suddenly dwindled to a trickle and then ceased. Three boys that were throwing sticks in the fountain basin walked away, pushing one another garrulously.

Annika vaguely recalled this part of town. It was an old quarter, built over a thousand years ago. Some of the stone houses dated from that era. The fountain was certainly from that time. Some said, it was a time before the first man came to the Empire. Others said, it was only before the Great Houses were formed. The House of the Dolphin was one of them. It was no more – the last of that line dying in a battle against the Imperial forces around five hundred years ago.

Will that be the fate of the House of the Tiger also, wondered Annika.

Then she wondered about the seven suns. If five of the suns were for the current five Houses, one for the emperor, and the last for the snakes, where was the sun for the House of the Dolphin?

Will the sun of the House of the Tiger also cease to shine?

It was a grim thought. Annika shifted her focus to her surroundings. They seemed to have been walking an awfully long time.

“Where is this shop?” asked Zak after another ten minutes.

“This way,” said Annika, with confidence she did not feel.

The streets in the old quarter were straight. All intersections were at 90 degrees. All houses were three stories and in the same shade of grey. There were no trees, not even a single blade of green grass. There was also little to orient a traveler.

Annika realized that they had passed the same intersection three times when she saw the same woman leaning out of a window on the third pass. She recalled turning right at least once before. She was no longer sure where she was. With desperation, she plunged left.

“Where did you learn about this shop?” asked Zak, after they passed the intersection for the third time.

“The healer in the river lands,” Annika said, reluctantly at first, but then with more forthrightness as the memory resurfaced. “She had taught me the craft of healing with grasses. She had lived in Karrum for some years when she was young. She told me of it.”

They walked in silence for a few minutes.

“Was it around this intersection?”

“What intersection?” asked Annika.

“The one we’re about to pass it for the fourth time.”

And so they did. Zak made no further comment about it.

Annika was grateful for that, despite the embarrassed flush that took hold of her at the thought of her lack of ability to navigate.

At the bottom of a steep hill they came to a ditch filled with water. Two preachers in torn robes, with bare feet and heads, and with scabbed and ill faces, dangled their feet in it. “Mortify thy flesh,” one of them, with bulging eyes made cloudy by madness, called out to Zak and Annika.

“I shall leave the mortification to your kind,” Zak replied, which caused their curses to trail them until they passed out of earshot.

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