The Rebel Read Online Free

and cache of tinder and lit a candle.
    “We’re safe here,” she said to the boy, around gasping breaths. “Guards don’t know this exists.”
    In the flickering candle flame, she could see that his hair was as pale as his serpent form, and long. It had been braided but still hung halfway down his back. His clothes were similar to the guards’—trousers, shirt, leather vest, bracers, boots—but had a soft, homemade look to them. The leather was brown, tanned unevenly, so there were lighter and darker splotches.
    “Are you helping me?” he asked.
    “Apparently,” she answered. “No one will find us here. We can leave once they stop looking.” Realizing that she was still clutching the package of food from the kitchen, she set it between them and asked, “Are you hungry?”
    His eyes locked on the food as it was revealed, and he nodded. The look on his face was overwhelmingly grateful.
    “My name is Shkei,” he said as he reached for one of the pies.
    “I’m Kadee.” Before she took her first bite, she asked, “Are you an assassin?”
    “No!” He shook his head, making his white braid bounce. “I’ve never hurt anyone.” He bit his lip again, then said, “I am a thief, and technically, I’m guilty of treason.” He looked at the small meat pie in his hand, and asked, absurdly, “Are you still willing to share your food?”
    She thought it over, knowing what Paulin would say if he knew what she had done. “I guess I’m technically guilty of treason now, too.”
    Shkei nodded. Suddenly, his eyes widened. “Wait—
Kadee.
You’re Julian’s ward. The part-human one.” Kadee flinched and was about to come up with a sharp retort, when he said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it. Obviously you’re not…like that.”
    “Like a human?” she snapped, bristling.
    Shkei laughed out loud, before saying, “Like a
royal.
What’s a human supposed to be like?”
    The open question caught her completely off guard. “What?”
    “My parents both died before I was born,” Shkei said. “Did you get to know yours at all?”
    “How did your mother die before you were born?” Kadee asked, not sure she wanted to share her story.
    “She was a slave,” Shkei answered. “The people of Midnight killed her. She was still alive, physically, until I was about two years old, but they took her soul so she was dead inside.” He pulled his knees up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them.
    “What about your father?” Kadee asked, horrified. She had heard people talk about Midnight, but had never known anyone who had actually been there.
    “I shouldn’t ever have been conceived,” Shkei answered. “Farrell says a slave can’t say no, which means she can’t really say yes either, but he wasn’t watching closely enough, and my dad took advantage of my mom and…so I’m here. Were your parents better than that?”
    “Yes,” Kadee squeaked out, moved and shocked by the frank description Shkei gave of his own background. “My parents were wonderful.”
    In halting phrases, she began to describe everything she could remember of her life with her human parents, gauging Shkei’s reaction along the way. The last thing Kadee wanted to do was gloat about her family life when Shkei thought his life was a mistake. But he seemed to love every minute of it. She hadn’t ever met the serpent who was supposedly her blood-father; he was gone before she was born, before her mother had met the man Kadee actually called Father. So she talked about everything else, anything that came to mind, and Shkei listened raptly.
    ***
    Over the next few months, she saw Shkei often. She showed him the places where he could sneak in from the forest, which meant he could get in and out of the market without guards noticing. Perhaps she should have objected to his thievery, but he swiped things like grain, salt, and occasionally a bolt of cheap fabric—nothing a wealthy man would have bothered to sniff at. He explained