The Fisherman's Daughter Read Online Free Page A

hearing this, Meiri thinks. What will wizards do to someone who hears their secrets? I mustn’t make a sound. Again, she wonders if she would have been better off spreading her legs for the cook, but then anger steels her resolve. No one should have to accept living like this! I will get out of this alive, somehow!
    Desdemona slips her arms around Tal Harun’s neck. “I’m just grateful for your sanctuary spell. Nine months of pregnancy safely tucked away in a single moment outside of Time, and Leera born with no one the wiser and me never gone as far as they can tell.”
    “And she’s four now, by her age,” Tal Harun states. “Time isn’t stable in the sanctuary. I don’t want her raised by faeries, and if she doesn’t rejoin our own timeline, we’ll miss her growing up.”
    “I know you’ve picked wizards you trust to run this school,” Desdemona concedes. “She’ll be raised by the best and learn our arts. But here? Surely, another land…”
    “Aradheim is the most uncouth. No one would suspect a child here could be ours. My wife is too proud to even think of it, and you know her suspicious nature.”
    “She can prove nothing. We’ve seen to it. Why did you have to marry a nonwizard? You’re better than that.”
    Tal Harun snorts. “It was arranged, you know that. Nevertheless, Artalonian law is law. I accepted that law when I became an apprentice.”
    “And now you’re the greatest among us.” Desdemona sighs and smiles. “The little boy from Tuimapar. Who knew you could rise so high?”
    “Second only to you,” he teases.
    She releases him and says, “I’d like to see her for a little bit before we go to bed.”
    Tal Harun draws a wand and holds it upright. It flashes for a moment, and then a white vertical line appears in front of him. It stretches into a flat rectangle, and a child walks out from it into the room, holding the hand of a twig-faced and leaf-haired goblin.
    Meiri suppresses a gasp. At the sight of the fae creature, the shaman’s voice echoes in her mind. You are meant for the fair folk. She knows a goblin is not an elf, but both races are descended from the faerie folk of the Otherworld. She’s surprised that the goblin is fair of form, not nearly as unpleasant to look at as she’d been led to believe from her childhood bedtime stories. He’s short and thin, with a stretched face that has an unsettling youthful look about it, with green skin and a smooth complexion. His eyes are both gentle and piercing, but at some angles almost look carved from wood. Twigs grow from his eyebrows and cheeks, and leaves spring from the ends of his hair.
    “Lord Tal Harun, Lady Desdemona,” the goblin greets them. “Little Leera is doing well, but she misses you.” He pauses before he adds, “And Sanctuary stretches ever thinner .”
    “Soon she will have a home outside of the sanctuary,” Desdemona says. “Just a few things more to settle.” She picks up Leera in her arms, and the child touches the woman on her nose.
    “Mama!”
    Meiri’s knees complain from not having moved from their crouched position. Her calves and ankles tingle for lack of blood.
    There’s a knock at the door. Meiri sucks in a breath, and her fingers dart to her lips when she sees the goblin look straight at her.
    “Tal,” Desdemona whispers urgently. “They must not see her. No one can see her.”
    The knocking becomes more insistent. “Lord Tal Harun, Lady Desdemona!” a woman’s voice calls out.
    The goblin points towards the curtain and whispers, “She has already been seen.”
    Tal Harun stares with a troubled look over towards the curtain where Meiri sits frozen, even as he ushers the goblin and Leera to the side. “Hush,” he tells them.
    Leera follows the goblin’s stare and makes eye contact with Meiri. Meiri makes no move, knowing that the only certainty is if the person outside the door discovers her, she is doomed. She’s unsure how the wizards will react.
    Desdemona partially