Aloren Read Online Free Page B

talk about what you are doing.  You cannot take responsibility for your actions.  You cannot defend yourself.  And you’d be better off not expressing your opinions.  Do any of these things and you risk going mad.” 
    He scrunched his face up. “You’re too young to understand.  You aren’t allowed certain things.”  He squeezed my hand again, so hard he shook. “I’m sorry.” His hand went limp. His ring fell through my fingers and chimed on the stone.
    “Don’t leave.” My temples burned and my stomach sickened.
    “Be brave.” 
    “Don’t leave me.”  
    Stillness crept through the tower, cold and blue, a bruise stealing into every nook of me.
     
     

 
    Three
     
     
    As I wept, darkness fell and the stars above me grew bright.  The last of the light went, and dust blew up from the ground, catching in my throat.  The shadows on the walls lengthened. 
    I turned and there they stood, bodies whole, hands and feet solid. Hair wildly mussed, tunics askew––it looked as though they had been standing in a great wind.  They were white-eyed with shock.
    “I don’t understand,” said Tem, looking at his hands.
    “Starlight.”  Mordan looked out the broken roof.  “It’s a new moon.”
      The new moon was a traditional time of magic and strangeness.  Or it could’ve been the starlight.  The Elde had worshiped the stars before humans came and brought the sun.
    Tem stuck his hand into a shadow and out of the starlight, and a few transparent pinion feathers took its place. “All right.” He sounded remarkably calm.  “Stay out of the shadows.”  He looked at Mordan.  “Let's put Father on the river while we still can.” 
    “Why? This is his fault.” Arin didn’t move, and the freckles stood out from his white face. 
    “You’ll help us,” said Tem quietly, “or I’ll thump you.”
    Arin said no more about it, and the older boys picked Father up and carried him down to the murmuring Gael River to give him a proper Gralde goodbye. 
    With numb fingers we tied bunches of last autumn’s rushes into a pallet, and for lack of our family’s wild-roses, threaded it through with snow glories and larkspur while Liskara nickered in the night.  We placed Father upon it with his sword on his breast, and set him afloat on the black water.
    I wiped my nose and looked away before he drifted out of sight.  My hand found Tem’s and he held me next to him. 
    At some point I realized Floy wasn’t there.  I ran back up the steps and into the tower. 
    She stood against the wall, white-faced in the starlight.  When she saw me, she slipped half into a shadow and I saw half of her disappear.  I grappled for her hand and pulled her into the light. 
    “What happened to you?” I said. 
    She told me the whole story.  I gaped at her, and the boys came in, keeping clear of the shadows.  “All right,” Arin said shakily.  “What are we going to do?”
    “Stay out of the wind,” said Mordan.  “Try not to die.  Watch  the country fall apart.”
    “We’ve got instructions,” said Tem. He pointed to the signet ring glinting on the stone.  “And that.” 
    “You could just put it on,” Arin said, “march down to Ellyned––”
    “Not in a night.  This is temporary––we have until morning.” He put his arm into a shadow, and it became a wing. 
    “You’re birds,” I said, staring at the feathers.  “All of you.  You’re all birds.”
    Arin eyed me sullenly.  “What about you?  Always skiving off family occasions.”
    “You locked me in the privy .”
    “It is strange,” Mordan said, “that we should be birds.  And Floy––she’s an actual bird.”  He turned to Floy.  “Are you dumb like a beast?”
    “Dumb like a beast?”  She shoved him away from her.  “Straight out of hell this came.” 
    She hid her face in her hands, and I kept quiet; and Tem said to me: “We sent Floy to look for you when we found Father.  As she was a real bird.