Given to the Earth by Mindy McGinnis

Author:Mindy McGinnis [McGinnis, Mindy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Young Adult Fiction, Fantasy, General, Romance, Legends; Myths; Fables
ISBN: 9780399544644
Google: 5OksDwAAQBAJ
Amazon: 039954464X
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2018-04-09T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 46

Witt

Sleep teases me, calling in low tones that sound like my mother’s voice rolling back against the waves. I wake tangled in my bed coverings, the sound of the surf nearly covering the light knock at my door. Hadduk tends to burst in, hoping to catch me at some sport he can mock me for, unable to believe that I take no woman. The knock comes again, a light touch, and I erase any tones of fear from my voice before calling out.

“Come in.”

It is the Keeper, a lantern burning low in her hand. “Apologies, Lithos, a soldier came asking for you, and though the Mason would turn him away, I thought his words worth hearing.”

As a steady mind goes, I value hers over his, and so motion for the soldier to enter. It’s an older man, one I remember rallying troops to his side after his commander was swept up in the wave. He wears a band on his finger; he is a solid Pietran of good stock who has been allowed to take a wife and breed. If something has pestered this man to come to his Lithos in the dead of dark, it is worthwhile indeed.

“Speak,” I say, already pulling on my breeches and signaling for the Keeper to find me a shirt.

“My Lithos, I would not have—”

“Your Lithos calls for you to speak, not explain yourself,” I say. The man, a true soldier, responds by clicking his heels together and reporting.

“A clowder of cats has gathered in the forest.”

My fingers pause on my bootlaces as I question my judgment. “And? The Tangata wander here from time to time. Why is that remarkable?”

“They wander, yes,” the man admits. “But these cats seem to have purpose. Or rather, to be in search of some. They . . .” He breaks off, looking at the Keeper as if he would not voice horrors in her presence.

“Out with it,” I say, fingers back on my laces. “This woman has seen much and done more. You will not find her easily shocked.”

“Children pulled from a wagon, my Lithos. One dead before she could cry out. The other . . . she had the chance to scream, at least.”

“You know more of the cats than we do,” I say to the Keeper as I take a clean shirt from her. “Do they often act as such?”

“If restless,” she says. “Not so long ago, Stille sent the Indiri to us, after the cats became bold and stole some of our children.”

“And what did the Indiri do?”

The Keeper shrugs. “They were bolder.”

“I’ll ride out,” I say to the soldier, almost expecting him to tell me my presence is not necessary. I will argue that sleep evades me, and what better purpose for the Lithos than to see to his people? But the soldier does not contradict me, instead moving aside to let me pass by him to the door.

“You have men?” I ask him. He’s a lower commander, and not one who will have many to call to him, but enough that I will not fear for my safety against the cats.

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