Valkwitch (The Valkwitch Saga Book 1) Read Online Free

his
majority of the carried weight. The wurm landed with its head pointed up at
Iri, mouth agape, tongue lolling out one side like a panting dog. Charming.
    Tyrissa received a hard, accusatory stare from
her mother’s eye. She could see the lower end of the scar peeking out from
below the makeshift eye patch. A deep and surgically precise cut ran through
Iri’s eyebrow to partway down her cheek and the wound should have blinded her,
yet she could see perfectly fine on good days. Whenever Tyrissa asked about it
her mother would say, ‘I received it in the Cleanse and it never healed
properly,’ and would elaborate no further despite Tyrissa’s repeated attempts
to learn more. Iri’s entire generation bore such wounds and scars: the shared
mark of Cleanse survivors. Few, however, were as peculiar as her mother’s eye.
Though Tyrissa’s latest growth spurt gave her a few inches over her mother, she
still felt shorter out of sheer presence.
    “I see. Thank you.” Iri’s eye bounced between the
wurm, Tyrissa’s bandaged arm, and Sven’s mud-caked clothes. The three of them
had stopped at a stream on the way back and attempted to clean Sven up, but
there was only so much that could be done for it. Iri’s expression softened
into a small, soft smile. Tyrissa inwardly cringed at promise of a future
tongue-lashing.
    “Well, don’t just stand there, take it down to
Hileg’s. Tell him he may keep a few cuts for himself and Mirra. Then clean
yourselves up and try not to have any further… adventures before dinner.
If at all possible, Tyrissa.”
     
     
    Hours later, Tyrissa sat behind their house at
the crest of the hill, catching the faint scents of her mother preparing dinner
mingling with the sharp smell of the herb-soaked bandages wrapped around her
right arm. The book lying in her lap, The Women of Amonzae , was
unopened. She’d read it cover to cover many times, the stories of the jungle
dwelling society of warrior-women always thrilling, but glossing over how such
a society functions for more than a generation without men.
    Instead, Tyrissa gazed out over the lower section
of Edgewatch and kept watch for Liran’s return. A larger ring of homes were
built around a second common green, the houses similar to the ones at her back,
but packed closer together. The lower green currently had a swarm of children
kicking around a leather-bound ball, the game utterly lawless. It was a common
sight, as youth far outnumbered adults in Edgewatch or any other Morg town,
with most families having four or more children. Tyrissa had no shortage of
friends and playmates growing up, though only Oster was capable of keeping up
with her in the forest. Everyone else wasn’t interested in ‘a bunch of trees
and trails’. She sighed at the thought. Most times it seemed only her eyes were
drawn northward while everyone else looked south.
    Past the lower green, the Fjordway cut through
the new center of Edgewatch, an ancient road that ran from the central Morg
cities in the west to the rugged port towns nestled among the fjord-riddled
coasts to the east. Shops lined the road, along with the Forest’s Respite ,
the town’s inn and stables. Beyond the inn was the spire-topped roof of the
schoolhouse. Tyrissa was glad to be done with that place. Beyond that
stood yet more rows of homes, some still skeletal frames in the midst of
construction with stacks of recently felled and cut lumber beside them.
Edgewatch had become the primary waypoint for traders traveling the Fjordway
after the Cleanse. Most of the other villages along the trade road were gone,
with little left but bad memories haunting the burnt and rotted husks of
abandoned homes.
    Her eyes followed the road eastward until it
vanished among the trees. Tyrissa had only read about the fjordland, never seen
it for herself. At this point, her imagined view of staggering cliffs and
countless secret inlets probably outdid the real thing, the fantastic
landscapes of her adventure