Arrows of the Queen Read Online Free

looking cowed and ashamed, were Keldar and her Father.
    â€œYou are Talia?” the Herald asked, and she nodded affirmatively.
    She broke out in a smile that dazzled her—it was like a sudden appearance of the sun after rain.
    â€œBlessed is the Lady who led us here!” she exclaimed. “Many the weary months we have searched for you, and always in vain. We had nothing to go on except your name—”
    â€œLed you to me?” she asked, exalted, “But, why?”
    â€œTo make you one of us, little sister,” she replied, as Keldar shrank into herself and her Father seemed bent on studying the tops of his shoes. “You are to be a Herald , Talia — the gods themselves have decreed it. Look—yonder comes your Companion—”
    She looked where the Herald pointed, and saw a graceful white mare with a high, arched neck and a knowing eye pacing deliberately toward her. The Companion was caparisoned all in blue and silver, tiny bells hanging from her reins and bridle. Behind the Companion, at a respectful distance, came all her sibs, the rest of the Wives, and all the servants of the Holding.
    With a glad cry, she ran to meet the mare and the Herald helped her to mount up on the Companion’s back, while the Hold servants cheered, her sibs stared in sullen respect, and Keldar and her Father stared at her in plain fear, obviously thinking of all the punishments they’d meted out to HER and expecting the same now that she was the one in power —
    The sound of hoofbeats on the Road broke into her desperate daydream. For one panicked moment she thought it was another searcher, but then she realized that her Father’s horses sounded nothing like this. These hoofbeats had a chime like bells on the hard surface. As the sound drew nearer, it was joined by another; the sound of real bells, of bridle bells. Only one kind of horse wore bridle bells every day, and not just on Festival Days—the magical steed of legend, a Herald’s Companion.
    Talia had never seen a real Herald, though she’d daydreamed about them constantly. The realization that she was finally going to see one of her dreams in actual fact startled her out of her fantasy and her tears completely. The distraction was too tempting to resist. For just this one moment she would forget her troubles, her hopeless position, and snatch a tiny bit of magic for herself, to treasure all her days. She leaned out of her cave, stretching as far out as she could, thinking of nothing except to catch a glimpse—and leaned out too far.
    She lost her balance, and her flailing hands caught nothing but air. She tumbled end over end down the bluff, banging painfully into roots and rocks. The wind was knocked out of her before she was halfway down, and nothing she collided with seemed to slow her descent any. She was totally unable to stop her headlong tumble until she landed on the hard surface of the Road itself, with a force that set sparks to dancing in front of her eyes and left her half-stunned.
    When the grayness cleared away from her vision and she could get a breath again, she found herself sprawled face downward on the Road. Her hands were scraped, her sides bruised, her knees full of gravel, and her eyes full of dirt. When she turned her head to the side, blinking tears away, she found she was gazing at four silver hooves.
    She gave a strangled gasp and scrambled painfully to her feet. Regarding her with a gentle curiosity was a—well, a Herald’s Companion was hardly what one would call a “horse.” They transcended horses in the way that panthers transcend alleycats, or angels transcend men. Talia had read and heard plenty of descriptions of the Companions before, but she was still totally unprepared for the close-hand reality.
    The riderless Companion was in full formal array, his trappings silver and sky-blue, his reins hung with silver bridle bells. No horse in Talia’s experience had