The Mudlark: Birds of Erishum Trilogy by Gwen DeMarco

Author:Gwen DeMarco [DeMarco, Gwen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-11-16T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 12

Nyssa’s fingers started to ache as she molded another lump of dough in the pre-dawn stillness of the baker’s kitchen. Khinnis had promised to get up early with Nyssa to work on making her favorite sweet buns before the kitchen got busy. She’d promised Khinnis that she’d cover her assigned day in the laundry room to return the favor.

The sensations of flour coating her fingertips, the warmth of the oven caressing her face, the rise of the dough, then punching it back down – all transformed into a rhythmic dance that Nyssa loved. Each loaf she baked, each bread roll she crafted, even when she had to sweep the floors and scrub pots, Nyssa couldn’t help but feel like her dreams were finally coming true. Being a baker’s apprentice was hard, long work that started before sunrise each day, but it was everything she’d ever hoped it would be.

The days when she would dart through the labyrinthine alleyways, or hunt and peck her way through the river’s mud, felt like they were finally behind her. They were days that she would always cherish, but her face was turned fully to her future. Nyssa wondered if Vallen had felt the same when he joined the shrikes.

As the rest of the apprentices slowly shuffled in, Nyssa noticed that her fellow bakers weren’t as jovial as usual. Although the upcoming sacrifice was on everyone’s mind, no one spoke of it. The cost of the kingdom’s protection sat heavily on everyone’s shoulders, but everyone kept their silence. The weight felt especially oppressive to Nyssa, who was entertaining doubts about the necessity of Enum’s Tributes for the first time in her life.

Another worry gnawing on the edge of Nyssa’s happiness was Vallen. With each night’s expedition to the barracks, Nyssa had not once caught a glimpse of his familiar silhouette. She desperately wanted to give him the dagger. She was nervous to have such an expensive item in her possession. What if someone stole it? Each day that she couldn’t find him made her anxiety grow. The idea nagged at her relentlessly. Where was he? Perhaps he had been assigned to night patrol duties.

Nyssa knew that the days leading up to the sacrifice of five criminals to the Dying Wilds were always steeped in unrest, and as a result, the kingdom’s patrols doubled – which might also explain why she hadn’t spotted Vallen yet. He was one of the newer shrikes, and much as Nyssa found herself assigned with the hardest, most unsavory tasks, she imagined Vallen suffered a similar fate. He also said that the other guards did not like him. Shrikes were renowned for being rough, fearsome men. It wasn’t difficult for Nyssa to believe that they resented someone as humble and kindhearted as Vallen. She imagined that his history as a mudlark didn’t help his reputation – people treated most mudlarks like unwanted vermin. Nyssa had been very careful to hide her background from the other apprentices.

It was the mystery of Vallen’s absence that cast the largest shadow on her otherwise bright days.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.