1416934715(FY) Read Online Free Page A

suddenly. “Look up.”
    Before me stretched the great blue arm of the ocean. The surface of the water flashed like fire. I sucked in a breath. Beneath the brim of my sunhat, I lifted a hand to shield my eyes.
    “What is that?” I asked, and I could hear the urgency in my own voice now. “Something’s not right. The sea glitters like . . .”
    “Like metal,” Raoul’s voice cut across mine.
    I let the hoe slip through my fingers then, never heard it hit the ground. I could think of just one reason for the sea to do that.
    “Soldiers,” I said. “Armor. How many ships are there, can you tell?” I could not, for my eyes had begun to water.
    Raoul took my hand in his, then our feet stumbledin our haste as he tugged me to the end of the row. Half a dozen more paces and we could have jumped right off the edge of the land.
    “Seven,” he said. “Five hulks and two galleons”
    “Five hulks,” I whispered, and just speaking the words aloud brought a chill to my heart.
    Though the double-decked galleons with their glorious sails were the undisputed masters of the sea, it was the ungainly, flat-bottom hulks with no sails at all we feared the most. These were the ships that could bring the greatest number of soldiers to our shores. Five may not seem like such a great number to you, but the ships were large and our land is small. And there had been no soldiers for nearly twenty years now.
    “What flag are they flying, can you see?” I asked, as I dashed a hand across my cheeks in annoyance, hoping to clear the water from my eyes.
Maybe they’re not coming for us, at all,
I thought.
Perhaps they’re going somewhere else. Somewhere far away.
    Raoul was silent for one long moment. “A white flag,” he said at last. “In the center, a black swan with a red rose in its beak, and a border of golden thorns.”
    “No,” I whispered, as the earth seemed to sway beneath my feet, for this was the one we feared most of all. One not seen in our land since before I was born, since the marriage of our king and queen had taken place to put an end to bloodshed. “No.”
    “I can see it clear as day, Rilla,” Raoul said, and Itook no offense at the sting in his voice, I knew all too well that it was not for me.
    “Will they try to land here, do you think?”
    Raoul shook his head. “We are not important enough a place, and our shore has too many rocks. They will make for the capitol, the court, and go farther down the coast.”
    “I wish all this would stop,” I exclaimed fiercely, the words out of my mouth in the exact same moment I thought them. “I wish that I could find a way to stop it.”
    This is the third most powerful kind of wish there is: the one you make unbidden, not to your heart, but from it. Only knowing what it is you wish for as you hear own voice, proclaiming it aloud.
    No sooner did I finish speaking than I felt the wind shift, blowing straight into my face, tickling the long braids I wore tucked up beneath my sun hat, then tugging at them hard enough to make the hat fly back. With a quick, hard jerk, the leather chin strap pulled tight against my throat.
    “So do I,” Raoul said softly.
    At his words, the air went perfectly still. Raoul and I stood together, hardly daring to breathe. Then, ever so slowly, the wind began to shift again. Its force became strong, picking up until my skirts streamed straight out to the left, flapping against my legs. Below us, the surface of the water was covered with whitecaps. Galleons and hulks alike bucked like unbroken horses.
    “The wind is blowing backward,” Raoul said, his voice strange.
    “It can’t do that,” I answered. “It never blows in that direction off our coast, not even when it storms.”
    “I know it,” Raoul said. “But it’s blowing in that direction now. We wished to find a way to make the fighting stop, and now the wind is blowing backward. We did that. Did we do that?”
    “I don’t know. But I think we should get out of the wind.