The Wizard's Promise by Cassandra Rose Clarke

Author:Cassandra Rose Clarke
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Osprey Publishing Ltd
Published: 2014-05-01T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 9

After dinner, Finnur helped me get settled aboard the Cornflower. It was a much smaller boat than the Crocus, but belowdecks was well cared for: the holes in the ceiling patched, the floor dry. The hearth had been cleaned of old ashes, and there was an actual bed in the captain’s cabin, with a small, hay-stuffed mattress. After weeks of sleeping on cots and hammocks, I found it an unimaginable luxury.

I slept easily that first night, deep and steady, although I dreamed, something I hadn’t done aboard the Annika. My dreams were strange but not unsettling: I was at the base of a tall, rocky mountain, surrounded by yaks that snuffled and pawed at the frozen ground. Wind roared over the mountains, coming from the north. It smelled of tulra ale and seemed to have a voice of its own, whispering my name, telling me I was safe. I believed it. I was certain it came from Finnur and Asbera.

When I woke, sunlight was spilling in through the doorway. I’d left it open in the night. I got up and stretched, feeling refreshed for the first time in weeks. A cask of lisila sat on my bedside table, left over from left night – Asbera had given it to me when I left the Crocus. I ate it quickly, and it was just as delicious for breakfast as it had been for dinner. Finnur had told me there was a shared well in the center of the town, so I dug around in the storage room until I found some empty skins. Then I went up on deck.

The air was cold and bright and still. The deck of the Cornflower was bare in comparison to the deck of the Crocus, but I had no intention of draping it with plants and charms. That would suggest I planned on staying here for a long time, and I didn’t. My bracelet could protect me for the time being.

The dinghy was still where we had left it the night before, lodged in the space between the Cornflower and the Crocus. I lowered myself down and rowed to the pier. The docks were mostly empty, just a pair of fish-boys running errands back and forth between the boats and the shops in the village.

Everything felt as much like a dream as the base of the mountain had.

I followed Finnur’s directions to the well. To my relief, no one was there, and I filled up the skins and dropped them in my bag. I realized I didn’t want to go back to the Cornflower yet. There wouldn’t be much to do besides sit on my cot and count down the days until we made sail again.

So I walked through the streets of Rilil, weaving through the mounds of earth and piles of stone. Most of the doorways were graced with twists of vine, simpler, more decorative versions of the charms Asbera and Finnur kept on their upper deck. I hadn’t taken those vines for

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