Archangel Read Online Free

city constructed of milk-white stone—all its spires, domes, archways, towers and sanctuaries built of the same pale rock. Even more impossibly, it was built on a small island in the middle of the River Galilee, which divided Jordana from Bethel. There were only two approaches to the alabaster city—across the fabulous webbed bridge from Jordana, a delicate affair of ropes and steel that looked no more substantial than string; or by boat, through the water gates that faced the Bethel side of the river.
    The city was so famous, and so wealthy, that it had long ago overrun the available surfaces of the rocky island that served as its base. Yet buildings continued to go up, one precariously balanced atop another; more and more people came to do business, or to visit, or to stay, so that the streets and bazaars and alleyways teemed with life. The whole world came to Semorrah. You could not walk through the market without seeing a lord’s daughter reclining in her chair, carried by six slaves wearing her father’s livery. You could not walk down the meanest street without encountering a Jansai merchant, a Monteverde angel, a Luminaux craftsman.
    You could not stroll down the River Walk, your eyes turned longingly toward Jordana, without seeing another Jansai trading party coming in across the spidery bridge, driving their fresh catch of Edori slaves before them.
    Which was why it was stupid to follow the River Walk home.
    She could not help herself; she stood there and watched as the slaves were herded across the river. They looked dazed and exhausted, sore from the hard journey, hungry, afraid. Some ofthe wilder ones still continued to glance about them, judging distances, possible weapons, escape paths. The rest just plodded forward, lost already, hopeless. From a distance, it was hard to tell one from the other, for the Edori all bore a remarkable clan resemblance—high flat cheekbones, dark straight hair, bronze skin, brown eyes. Nonetheless, Rachel made herself look at each one carefully, straining her eyes, hoping she did not recognize in each sorry new arrival a familiar body, a beloved face. Once or twice she saw, or thought she saw, someone she remembered from a campfire at one of the Gatherings—a leader of some other tribe, a girl she had met in passing at a streambed, fetching water. But she never saw those of her own tribe, her adopted family, her friends—or Simon.
    Even if they were alive, it was unlikely she would ever see them again. The whole camp had been dispersed or destroyed in the Jansai raid five years ago; everyone who had not been taken had died, she was sure of it. But Simon had not been among the slaves that had been walked to Semorrah five years ago, nor her cousins nor her uncle. That did not stop her from wondering. Every time she walked through the Semorrah streets, she watched the faces of the slaves. Every time she was sent with messages to another lord’s household, and she found herself however briefly alone with another Edori, she asked after those she had lost. She never yet had found traces of them. And if they were not in Semorrah, they were probably dead.
    But she still watched the incoming caravans, in case, in case.
    Anna had lost no time in telling her how lucky she was. “The lady Clara, now, she’s truly a devout woman,” the bondservant had told Rachel on her very first night in Lord Jethro’s household. “She doesn’t hold for carryings-on. A man, even a guest, even her own son, found bothering the slave women—well! It just doesn’t happen in Lord Jethro’s house. You might be beaten, you might be starved—if you misbehave, that is—you might be sold, but while you’re under this roof, you won’t be molested. And that’s a sight more than can be said about most roofs in Semorrah. You should fall on your knees and thank Jovah.”
    But that Rachel had been unable to do. She was more likely, as was her wont on most nights, to rail against Jovah, to bitterly