Shadows Book 1 in the World of Shadows Read Online Free Page A

“Yeah, I remember.”
    He frowned and his lips pushed out. “You
won’t be any good at guarding the camp tonight if you can’t stay
awake.”
    “ I’m not good at guarding
it anyway,” I mumbled. Dathien glanced at me and I finally nodded.
“Alright, fine. You can carry me.”
    He smiled as though he had won something and
picked me up in his arms like a child before I could protest. He
continued on as if I didn’t weigh anything. I felt silly and told
him so.
    “ You need to sleep,” he
said simply.
    “ I’m not a child to be
carried,” I argued.
    One of my earliest memories surfaced. I saw
the Nathos mother who watched over the young Duskies strap her own
pure Nathos baby tenderly into a pack and lash him to her front in
a secure halter. A Duskie child a year younger than me toddled over
to her and opened and closed his hands for her to pick him up, too.
She glared at him in revulsion and turned away, leaving him to cry
his abandonment to the cavern floor.
    “ You aren’t much more than
a child,” Dathien reasoned with a glance down at me.
    I bristled. “I’ve lived longer than some of
the Duskies at the Caves.”
    Dathien’s jaw tightened, causing a vein to
stand out along his throat. “I have a daughter your age at Lumini,
though she’s of pure Luminos blood.” His eyes creased for a moment,
but he continued walking and didn’t speak again. I fought back the
wave of absurdity I felt at being carried and closed my eyes.
Within minutes, the rhythm of his steps and the cadence of his
breathing lulled me to sleep.
    We stopped just before dusk and I awoke on
soft desert sand still hot from the sun’s rays. I pushed groggily
to my feet and wordlessly accepted the night’s meal. This time,
someone had gathered prickly pears from the cacti and peeled them
to remove the spines. The fruit was sweet and juicy, and the taste
lingered in my throat long after I had eaten it.
    Marken built a small, smokeless fire, then
banked it until smoldering hot coals remained. He threw the sand
crabs into the pit, laid a tanned hide over the top, then covered
the pit in sand. Just before the orange sun disappeared below the
edge of the lonely red hills, he and Jatha uncovered the pit to
reveal smoky brown shells that were piping hot when he handed them
out.
    I passed the baked sand crab he handed me
from one hand to the other, unsure what to do with it. The shell
left smoke stains on my fingers and a strange smell wafted from the
inside.
    Marken set a crab on a flat rock, then hit
it with another rock. Steam rose from the crack in the shell and he
wedged his knife into it and pried the creature apart to reveal
dark purple meat that had been steamed to perfection in the pit. He
handed the cracked crab to Rasa, who sprinkled some spices from a
little pouch onto the meat before giving the crab to Axon. Marken
then held out a hand for the next creature to crack.
    I thought he would forget me and preferred
not to make a fuss, but when he finished cracking a crab for Jatha,
an extra large one for Dathien, one for Staden, who acted as the
group's doctor, and one for Dyloth with the ink-stained fingers, he
held out his hand to me without meeting my eyes. I handed him the
crab, careful our fingers didn't touch so that I wouldn't have to
see his reaction.
    The crab cracked cleanly on the stone and he
held it out for Rasa's spices before handing it back to me. I
carried the crab to my cushion near the edge of the tent and
cradled it carefully in my lap. I watched the others relish their
food, eating the meat with their fingers and then licking them
clean before drinking what remained of the juices in the bottom of
the shell. Axon caught me watching and held up his shell in a toast
before downing the contents. I fought down a smile and tasted the
purple meat.
    Sand crab turned out to be the best food I
had ever tasted. Rasa's spices complimented the dark, tender
ranginess that left lingering reminders of cactus dew and the
cinnamon