Ariah Read Online Free Page B

weeks before I left. My single bag had been packed a week and a half in advance. I didn’t know that life could change direction so sharply so quickly. I was young enough to think there was ample time to consider any major decision, and I was inexperienced enough to think that life gave you ample time to make the right one.
    I fell into a deep, black sleep that first night of Abira’s arrival. When Dirva woke me the next morning, her things were still piled in his armchair, but she herself was nowhere to be found. I could feel the change in the air as soon as I woke. There was a certainty of difference, intangible but inescapable. Dirva carried in him a steely darkness that day. He was closed and hard, whatever he felt secreted away from the rest of the world. There was no warmth to him. He asked me if I was hungry. I said I wasn’t. He looked at me closely. “How’s your mind? Can you think straight? Have you slept it off?” he asked.
    “ I don’t know. I think so.”
    He leaned against the wall and peered out the window down into the narrow alley below, his arms crossed against his chest. “There are things I need to explain to you, Ariah, and then you will have to make a choice, and you will have to make it today. Do you understand?”
    “ Yes?” I said, but I didn’t, and he knew I didn’t.
    “ Your mother’s mother was red. Tell me, did she tell you much about the way the reds live? Families and marriage, things like that?”
    “ Not terribly much, no.”
    “ You are unfamiliar with the term ‘da,’ then?”
    “ I am. I’m sorry.”
    Dirva shot me an impatient frown. “Why should you be sorry?”
    “ I…because, well, I…”
    He waved at me. “I’m going to tell you the situation, and then you can ask me for clarification if you need it. You’ll get tonight to think it over, but you’ll have to make a decision by morning.” The fingers of his left hand drummed against his right forearm. As he spoke, as he explained himself and where he came from, he watched me closely. He wasn’t reading me; I would have felt it if he were. Instead he regarded me with a deep and yearning curiosity. I knew him well enough to know that however I reacted mattered and would have consequences. I was still very Semadran then—as Abira said, Semadran through and through, green eyes be damned—so I pulled out all my silver reserve and showed him nothing at all. My face remained a perfect silver mask while he spoke. Looking back, I wish I hadn’t. I wish I’d shown him something. Compassion, understanding, something. I didn’t realize how vulnerable he was forcing himself to be.
    “ As you may have guessed by now, I grew up in the City. As anyone who has seen me can tell, I’m nahsiyya. I tell you this to say I had a different sort of family than yours, though now that you’ve met Abbie I’m sure that’s another thing you’ve guessed. My mother is nahsiyya. City-bred. My father is a red elf from the mountains. My da is Semadran. You have two parents; I have three. My father’s married to both of them. Ma and Da are not married to each other, but it works out somehow anyway.” Dirva’s dark eyebrows pulled together, and he turned towards the window a little more, a little further away from me. “My da is not well. Abbie is here to bring me back. She’s been here before to bring me back, but she says if ever there was a time to return it’s now. I believe her. I’m leaving for the City tomorrow. You are welcome to come with me. The timing is not ideal for your training, I know. You are welcome to come with me, but I will understand if you choose not to. Sleep on it tonight. Think it over.” He looked at me over his shoulder. “Do you have any questions?”
    “ Yes, I do.”
    He frowned. “Well, ask them.”
    His annoyance with me made me flustered. I ran a hand through my hair, stalling. “About your father. He is married to both?”
    “ Yes.” His answer was short, curt. The way he said it was