Thief's Cunning by Sarah Ahiers

Author:Sarah Ahiers
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2017-04-04T04:00:00+00:00

twenty-one

THE WAGON STOPPED ONCE THE SUN TOUCHED THE horizon.

Nev hopped out, and as soon as I was alone I tried standing again, but my wobbly legs shook until I was forced to sit.

Not yet, but soon.

Of course, even if I was in top form, I wasn’t sure how I would cross the dead plains. I wasn’t Lea, who was the chosen of Safraella and could command the ghosts away. But that was a problem for later. Right now I just needed my body to recover.

I scooted to the edge of the bench and pushed the curtain aside.

There were three other travelers besides Nev and Perrin, two men and a woman.

They untacked their horses and settled them down for the evening with bags of grain and mash. One of them lit a fire that roared to life when the sun disappeared below the horizon.

The ghosts rose.

There weren’t many, but the handful I spotted—their white, luminous forms drifting across the dead plains—were certainly enough to end every single one of us.

And they would. The angry dead always found the living.

The travelers separated, spreading out to four corners of the camp.

A ghost caught sight of us and screamed. The others followed suit, until the night was filled with the shrieks of the ghosts as they sped for us, eager to steal our bodies for themselves.

I clutched my necklace.

The travelers began to sing.

I didn’t understand the words. They were in Mornian, maybe, or perhaps another language. I was closest to Nev. He was a tenor, and his smooth voice made something twist in my stomach, until I had to look away from him.

I focused on the others, but they all sang the same song.

The ghosts continued to charge, their voices growing louder, until they covered the sound of the traveler song. But the travelers simply kept singing.

If I warned them, what could they do about it? There was no stopping ghosts. And if I kept quiet, maybe the ghosts would take them instead of me.

But Nev . . .

The travelers stopped their song. A light flashed between them. The ghosts halted, their screams dying away.

“What happened?” I asked one of the passing travelers. She ignored me and continued on her way. A necklace bounced on her chest, a twin to the one that hung around my neck.

I grasped the stone of my necklace in my palm, then slid it beneath my dress.

Nev returned. “They cannot see us. The singura and Culda’s song blind them to us, pushes them away in their travels.”

As he said that, the ghosts turned and headed back the way they’d come.

“This is how you travel?” I asked. “With a song? And a necklace?”

“Yes. Culda protects us as long as we stay in camp.” He paused, and studied me before adding, “If anyone leaves camp, the ghosts will take them.”

It was a pointed warning, so I wouldn’t try to run off in the middle of the night.

He headed to the fire, where one of the others appeared to be roasting two animals—rabbits, by the look of them.

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