The Stars Beyond the Stone by Bonnie Wynne

Author:Bonnie Wynne [Wynne, Bonnie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Talem Press
Published: 2021-09-05T22:00:00+00:00

It was a long and mostly silently journey back to the boat. Nobody wanted to speak. Or maybe they just didn’t know what to say. Gwyn certainly didn’t. Sepion had deserved to die, for enslaving Faolan, for selling him like chattel. But his death had achieved nothing.

‘I wanted to tell you the truth,’ Faolan said at one point. They were squelching through the waist-deep water, and had been for hours, it seemed. Gwyn no longer felt the leeches pricking her legs, her arms. She was too tired to care.

‘I understand,’ Gwyn said. A mass of dangling moss slapped her face, and she shoved it aside. ‘You have to do what Ragmir says.’

It made sense now. His tight, drawn appearance, that night in her room. He’d tried to warn her, in his own way – suggesting she turn around and take a ship off the island. He’d known Sepion didn’t have the bracelet. He just couldn’t say it outright.

‘He won’t give it up,’ Faolan warned. ‘Won’t give me up. I’m too valuable.’

At her side, Gwyn’s hands tightened into fists. She could feel the pull of the old scar across her palm. ‘I can make him.’

‘You could probably kill him,’ Faolan agreed. ‘But it wouldn’t achieve much. He’d kill me, first.’ He waved his arm, the brassy cuff winking at his wrist.

Gwyn fell silent. He was right, of course. If Ragmir ordered Faolan’s heart to stop beating, it would. And if that happened, this had truly been for nothing.

They poled their way downriver as the night insects began to appear: firebugs and peepers and things she couldn’t name. The oars slurped through the dark, stagnant water.

‘What’s that?’ Lucian asked suddenly, pointing. Hugging the river bank was a crumbled ruin, all burnt timber and masonry overgrown with vines. A house? Gwyn could barely make it out.

‘That’s my home,’ Starling said, and everyone turned to her. She’d said little on the way back, preferring to sit apart from the others, wrapped in smug silence.

‘What?’ Gwyn asked.

She sniffed and turned away, the torchlight illuminating her strong profile.

‘My home,’ she said, without looking. ‘Undergrove Manor. I was born there. And we’d still be living there, if Aranoran soldiers hadn’t come through and burned it.’

Gwyn blinked. ‘Aranoran soldiers? How could they even find the island? Isn’t it warded?’

‘It is now. But twelve years ago, it was just a house, and my parents were just merchant sailors. They sold cotton, spices, tea. They were no threat to anyone.’

‘So why …?’

She turned to Gwyn, eyes glittering. ‘They sold goods to the resistance, and the Aranormen didn’t like that. They raided the island and burned everything – our fields, our livestock, our servants. We barely escaped with our lives.’

‘The resistance took them in,’ Faolan explained. ‘Eventually, Adelaide became their leader; their Sea Queen. But it was Ragmir’s idea to make a pact with the necromancers, to set wardings and hide their islands. They returned here, to Half Moon Isle, a few years ago, but it was too late to rebuild the manor.

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.