The Star Shard by Frederic S. Durbin

Author:Frederic S. Durbin [Durbin, Frederic S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

In the dark watches, Cymbril awoke. The only light was the dim yellow glow of the hall's lamp leaking around the edges of her door. She rubbed her face, wondering what had woken her. Probably the blanket—the air was too close and hot for covers. But as she pushed the ragged bedding aside, she heard a sound: Rombol's hound barking somewhere on a lower deck. She raised her head to listen.

It wasn't Bale's moon bark, nor did it sound like the way he upbraided cats who got on his bad side. There was real anger and urgency in his tone, and at times he broke into a yi-yi-yiii that Cymbril had never heard.

But the Rake was rolling as usual, and even Cymbril's curiosity couldn't overcome her drowsiness. Tonight she was happy not to be at the center of things, where the barking was aimed and running footsteps converged. She rolled over and sighed, glad to be comfortable and alone in the dark, without a duty or an expectant crowd to entertain.

After a while, Bale was quiet again, and Cymbril was asleep.

***

Two nights later, after a bustling market in Grovender, Cymbril was mending the sleeve she'd torn in her scuffle with Gerta. The decks jolted, and the Rake began its journey to Banburnish Crossing. For the past two mornings and evenings, Cymbril had been trying to catch a glimpse of the Curdlebree girls, but every time she tried to slip away to the cloth dyers' stall, someone had found her and put her to work carrying this or toting that.

Still wearing her singing dress—fine green velvet brocaded in gold—she sat on her bunk with her feet tucked beneath her. The Rake's arms squealed and boomed, squealed and boomed, pulling the city wagon into darkness. The decks tilted, and Cymbril guessed the wheelman had turned from the road's verge, setting a course over rain-soft, uneven ground.

It made sense that Rombol would pay eight hundred fifty gold pieces for a Sidhe who could see in the dark. The Rake could not travel on the roads. Its steel claws would demolish any pavement they crossed, churning up cobbles like the soil of a plowed field. Nor could Rombol cut across farms or mow down the King's forests. The Rake must follow the wildest country where no one built or planted, where bogs and chasms threatened even the Rake's giant wheels. Torches on the bow did not drive back much of the night. Rombol groused bitterly on moonless evenings when travel became impossible, costing the merchants good business days.

Cymbril gazed deep into the glowing stone from her father. Sometimes she pretended the stone was a window through time and space, that somewhere on the other side of its blue-green fire, her father was also holding it, looking deep inside it just as she was. She would turn the stone and stare harder, hoping for a glimpse of his face.

Loric would be on the Rake's bow this evening, searching the blackness ahead and warning the helmsman of obstacles.

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