Dance of Thieves by Mary E. Pearson EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Author: Mary E. Pearson
- Language: English
- Genre: Fantasy Romance
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2 MB
- Price: Free
KAZIMYRAH OF BRIGHTMIST
The ghosts are still here.
The words lingered in the air, each one a shimmering spirit, cold
whispers of caution, but I wasn’t afraid.
I already knew.
The ghosts, they never go away. They call to you in unexpected
moments, their hands lacing with yours and pulling you down paths that
lead nowhere. This way. I had learned to mostly shut them out.
We rode through Sentinel Valley, ruins of the Ancients looking down
upon us. My horse’s ears pricked, watchful, a rumble deep from his throat.
He knew too. I rubbed his neck to calm him. It had been six years since the
Great Battle, but the scars were still visible—overturned wagons eaten up
with grass, scattered bones dug from graves by hungry beasts, the skeletal
ribs of giant brezalots reaching skyward, birds perched on their elegant
bleached cages.
I felt the ghosts hovering, watching, wondering. One of them slid a cool
fingertip along my jaw, pressing a warning to my lips, Shhh, Kazi, don’t say
a word.
Natiya led us deeper into the valley, unafraid. Our gazes scanned the
rugged cliffs and the crumbling devastation of a war that was slowly being
consumed by earth, time, and memory, like the awkward swallowing of a
fat hare by a patient snake. Soon, all the destruction would be in the belly of
the earth. Who would remember?
Midway, as the valley narrowed, Natiya stopped and slipped from her
saddle, pulling a folded square of white cloth from her saddlebag. Wren
dismounted too, her thin limbs gliding to the ground as silently as a bird.
Synové hesitated, watching me uncertainly. She was strongest of us all, but
her round hips remained firmly planted in her saddle. She did not care for
talk of ghosts, even in the brightness of a high sun.
They frequented her
dreams too often. I nodded to reassure her, and we both slid from our horses
and joined them. Natiya paused at a large green mound as if she knew what
lay beneath the woven blanket of grass. She absently rubbed the fabric
between her delicate brown fingers. It was only for a few seconds, but it
seemed to last forever. Natiya was nineteen, only two years older than us,
but she suddenly looked much older. She had actually seen the things we
had only heard stories about. Her head shook slightly, and she walked
toward a scattered pile of rocks. She began picking up the fallen stones and
puzzling them back into place on the humble memorial.
“Who was it?” I asked.
Her lips rolled tight against her teeth. “His name was Jeb. His body was
burned on a funeral pyre because that’s the Dalbretch way, but I buried his
few belongings here.”
Because that’s the vagabond way, I thought, but said nothing. Natiya
didn’t talk much about her life before she became Vendan and a Rahtan, but
I didn’t talk much about my earlier life either. Some things were better left
in the past. Wren and Synové shifted uncomfortably on their feet, their
boots pressing the grass into small, flat circles. Natiya wasn’t prone to
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