Deepwood: Karavans # 2 Read Online Free Page B

hide.
     
    He folded back additional layers of fabric, baring a damp blond head and equally wet shoulders. “Meggie, stop crying.”
     
    She did not.
     
    “Meggie, there’s no storm anymore.” Torvic shed the blanket and oilcloth and stood up, climbing down out of the crevice. Indeed, beneath the wide, drooping tree canopies there was no storm; but something was not quite right. The colors looked different. The sun was brighter. Squinting, Torvic looked up past the leaf canopy to the sky overhead.
     
    The world they inhabited was not the same.
     
    Torvic stood utterly still. He felt pressure in his chest, rising to fill his throat. He swallowed back a painful lump. He would not cry. Would
not
. He was a year older than four-year-old Megritte—that year made him better, braver. But he could not suppress the trembling that began in his body.
     
    Megritte climbed down next to him. Her hair was a tangled thicket torn free of its braids. Her face was wet with tears. “Torvic—”
     
    But he interrupted. “Meggie, we have to go.” He didn’t like his tone; it was thin and weak. He tried again. “We have to go. We have to find Da and Mam. We can’t stay here.”
     
    That diverted her. “
He
went to find them. The guide. He said he’d find Ellica and Gillan, and then Mam and Da. He said we should stay here.”
     
    “I don’t want to stay here, Meggie. The storm’s over. We should go find Mam and Da.”
     
    Megritte opened her mouth to say something further, but the air was filled with a high-pitched, inhuman, ululating scream.
     
    AUDRUN TOOK BACK her screaming infant from Rhuan. “How could you make me
cut
her? Mother of Moons, she’s but a newborn!” She uncurled the baby’s fist to inspect the damage done, spat into the tiny palm, then used the hem of her longtailed tunic to wash the blood away.
     
    He was cleaning the knife she had used. “It was necessary.”
     
    “And now you believe she’s yours?” Automatically she cradled the baby in such a way as to calm her, rocking her slightly. “Hush, hush, little one—all is well.” As the thin crying died out, Audrun unwadded the tunic from the baby’s fist. She blinked. “It’s not bleeding anymore. The cut is closed. There’s just a small scar.”
     
    He nodded. “She’s a child of Alisanos, as I am.”
     
    “She is
not
,” Audrun declared with vigor. “She is no such thing. This is Davyn’s child, not yours, and she’s Sancorran-born. She has nothing to do with Alisanos!”
     
    “We have commingled blood,” he said with a calmness she found distinctly annoying. “Hers passed into me, mine passed into her.” He displayed his right hand. “You see? I heal quickly, if the wound is not too severe. She will also, should she be injured. But neither of us is immortal. Not here. Alisanos rules here.”
     
    That startled her. “But you revived before, when the Hecari dart struck you. I saw it.”
     
    “In your world. Yes.”
     
    She shook her head, frowning. “But if you’re not Shoia … there’s no such thing as six deaths before the true death, then, is there?”
     
    “For a true Shoia, there is. But I’m not Shoia. In your world I can’t die.” He paused. “Well, other then temporarily. Here,” he shook his head. “Here, it’s different. Alisanos is deadly even to
dioscuri
.”
     
    Audrun felt an upsurge of desperation accompanied by an underlying nausea. Too much had happened, too much had changed, too much yet
would
change. Her husband and children were missing, save for the infant born too early in any world but this one, and she hadn’t the faintest idea where any of them were or where she should begin searching. Or even if they lived. Mired in exhaustion and worry, she could not wholly comprehend what Rhuan was telling her, though she knew it was important that she should. “When—” She paused as her voice broke, cleared her throat, and tried again. “When will it begin? The changing?”
     
    “It