Bhotta's Tears: Book Two of the Black Bead Chronicles Read Online Free Page B

shelf, wrapping it around his hips as he crossed the room.
    “What?” he asked, looking at Alain.
    “Ask Tam your question, wee bit,” Alain said.
    Cheobawn repeated the question carefully. Tam raised an eyebrow and looked up at Alain. Alain shrugged, a look passing between they two boys. Cheobawn hated that look. It meant they had a secret they were not willing to share. For some reason their hesitation annoyed her. Or maybe the tight feeling in the pit of her stomach, which had been with her since waking, was making her proddy. She pressed her lips together and tried not to snarl.
    It was a familiar problem, this. The world was trying to get her attention and her brain, without specific information, could only supply her with directionless generalities and a vague uneasiness. It made her feel stupid, like her head was full of seedpod fluff. Until she acquired the information that would fill in the gaps of her understanding she would worry at it, prodding the ache like a tongue probing a sore tooth.
    Megan came up behind Tam, scrubbing a towel through her short curls. She looked at Tam expectantly, waiting for him to answer the question. Tam flinched under the scrutiny of his two Ears.
    “Go on,” Megan said, her soft growl more of a warning than a request. “Tell us what gender inappropriate means.”  
    “I can’t tell you,” Tam insisted. “You will just get upset. Let’s get going. We should have been in the North Gate changing room five minutes ago.”  
    Cheobawn could not believe what she was hearing. Packmates shared everything. For some reason, Tam keeping a secret from her felt like betrayal.
    Her anxiety intensified. The dream seemed less innocent the more she thought about it, the clouds at her dream feet taking on a sinister quality. How could she set her mind at ease when everything she needed to know seemed to be cloaked in secrecy? Her lower lip trembled.
    Megan scowled at Tam.
    “Now look at what you’ve done,” she said.
    “Oh, by all that is …” sighed Tam. He squatted down to look his youngest Packmate in the eye. “Look. What’s the most important skill you bring to the Pack?”
    “My psi ability?” Cheobawn ventured.
    “That’s right. You’re my Ear. But things can interfere with your skill, right? Negative things, emotions and the like. All the demi-Packs have to study hard for years, learning to shield our minds, learning to be polite, learning the tricks, I mean, the methods that makes a Pack run flawlessly, and we have to pass all sorts of tests before we can ask a girl to be our Ear.” Tam grimaced and changed the direction of his explanation, having said more than he wanted. “You remember last year when I killed that stinging spider just before it tried to bite you?” Cheobawn nodded. “You told me yourself that its death scrambled your psi, making it hard to listen to the ambient, right?”
    “Yeah, but …” Cheobawn conceded. That was only partially true. It had, but only for a moment. She had gone on to kill her fair share of marauders, that night. “But Megan doesn’t have that problem.”
    “Megan,” said Megan dryly, “knows where she begins and the ambient ends, unlike someone I know. Plus, I haven’t adopted every living thing within five clicks as a personal pet.”
    “Well, there you go,” Tam said heartily, the emotion not quite ringing true. Cheobawn wondered what he was hiding. “The boys guard and protect and do the killing while the Ears listen. The Ears have a hard time killing while they are listening. The two skills seem to be mutually exclusive. Do you know what that means?”
    “I guess,” Cheobawn said doubtfully.
    “It means you can’t do one if you want to do the other,” Tam answered.
    “Why?” Cheobawn asked, honestly puzzled.
    “Uh,” Tam looked up at Megan for help.
    “Because,” said Megan, “One is a spiral inward and the other is the outward spiral. You can’t do both at the same time.”
    “Oh,” Cheobawn