The Fate of the Fallen (The Song of the Tears Book 1) Read Online Free Page A

and walked away
without a backwards glance.
     

 
    TWO

 
 
    Maelys shivered, turned the page, moved her cushion
closer to the embers, then closer still. Books burned hot but unfortunately not
for long, and once the last of her clan’s ancient library was gone, the
creeping mountain cold would surely freeze them solid.
    Unwilling to think about matters she was helpless to change,
she went back to the story, trying to memorise every word before her precious,
forbidden book of tales ended up in the fire. Tiaan and the Lyrinx was a wonderful tale but, because of the way
her mother and aunts were muttering around the cooking brazier, Maelys was
finding it increasingly difficult to concentrate. They were always chattering,
though lately their talk had grown urgent, calculating. They were plotting
something and she knew she wasn’t going to like it. Bent over the fuming
brazier with their lank hair hanging across their faces, they looked just like
the three evil witches in Snittiloe’s scurrilous tale.
    Maelys’s little sister, Fyllis, who was playing with some
carved animals in the corner, sat up suddenly, head to one side. Maelys jumped,
for she knew that look. Not again!
    Her hand crept towards the egg-shaped taphloid hanging on
its chain between her breasts, well hidden there, even from her family. Though
only the size of a chicken’s egg, it was heavy. Its surface was smooth yellow
metal, neither gold nor brass. Pressing hard on the round end opened it to
reveal the dial of a clockwork moon-calendar.
    The taphloid had been a secret gift from her father when
she’d turned twelve, but it never needed winding, and that was strange. Equally
strange were the other little numbered and lettered faces that only appeared
rarely and fleetingly. She had no idea what they were for, but it was the only
treasure she had left and Maelys felt safe whilever she wore it. Her father had
warned her never to let anyone see it, and never to take it off.
    The women stood bolt upright, three staring statues carved
out of gnarled root wood, then Maelys’s mother, Lyma, jerked her head. Maelys
darted to the door, pulled the hanging blanket down so not a glimmer of light
could escape, then eased the door open to look out into the ruins.
    A pang struck her at what the God-Emperor had done to their
beautiful home. Her ancestors had dwelt here for thirty generations, carefully
managing their alpine orchards, tending their flocks and forests, and extending
Nifferlin Manor whenever the rowdy clan grew too large for it. When Maelys had
been little she’d had the run of a dozen halls, a hundred rooms, and had been
welcome everywhere. With twenty-eight young cousins to play with it had been a
carefree time, despite the war and the loss of so many uncles and older male
cousins. But when the war ended, instead of the peace everyone so longed for,
the God-Emperor had come to power, and in a few brief years Clan Nifferlin had
lost everything.
    Now the menfolk were dead or in prison, the women and
children scattered or enslaved. The manor had been ransacked a dozen times, its
walls torn down to the foundations. Anything that couldn’t be carried away had
been smashed. All that remained were these three rooms, and only the one Maelys
and her family cowered in had a complete roof.
    Something skittered across the sky; the little hairs on her
arms stood up, then she heard gravel crunch on the road. ‘They’re coming!’ she
hissed. Maelys slipped inside and bolted the door, not that it could hold out
the God-Emperor’s troops. Nothing could.
    ‘Fyllis?’ said their mother urgently.
    Fyllis was staring at the door. She winced at the first
shout outside, winced again as a sledge-hammer smashed into the wall of the
next room. Putting her hands to her temples, she began to hum under her breath
and the room blurred as if fog had drifted under the door.
    It wasn’t fog, but a subtle shifting of reality. Too subtle, for now hammers were thudding