A Broken Paradise (The Windows of Heaven Book 3) Read Online Free PDF Page B

back, “C’mon, Farsa, you’re a Khavilak! Why should you throw in with a Lit? Is she your bynti or something?”
    Tiva began to tremble, and went rigid to make it stop. Wild, popular, can-get- away-with- anything-and- come-out- of-it- smelling-like- a-lily- Farsa just took my side!
    Farsa smiled like a shark, as she sauntered over to the girl who had made the “bynti” comment. Tiva was certain the upper-classman would join the others and make things even worse. That smile proved it!
    “Nice braids, Yssa,” Farsa said to the loudmouth. She grabbed both ropes of hair and pulled Yssa’s face down into her rising knee with the speed of a spring-loaded trap, twisting the girl’s braids to send her flying into the dirt with bloody nose spraying. “Still think she’s my bynti, girls?”
    The others stood quiet. None of them helped Yssa back to her feet.
    Then Farsa pointed at Tiva, and said to them, “Go to! The wench can’t help it her pahp’s the last gas bag of the flaming Lit rag! Do you pus-heads think anyone would dress that way if they had a real choice?”
    The pus-heads shook their braids sullenly.
    “So leave off her, or I’ll unwrap you all and squeeze yer bloody snot from yer noses into your hair too!” The redheaded titan kicked another one of Tiva’s tormentors in an ample rump and sent the rest running.
    Tiva rarely met the unexpected in her regimented life. Her tongue fumbled for the right words.
    Farsa spared her the indignity.
    “ Hey bynt; name!”
    “ Uh, Tiva. Thanks… I guess I’m not ready for some things…”
    Farsa scowled. “Go to , Uh-tiva, you Lits aren’t ready for nothin’ that has to do with the real world! You’ve hedged yerself off in this valley like the rest of creation’s just gonna quit and leave you be. Well, it won’t! It never does. By the way, are you a Wetter, a Flame Bag, an Earth Mouther, or a Trog?”
    It took Tiva several seconds to decipher the question. “If you mean which kind of World-end I think is coming; my father believes this valley will be protected from whatever it is by the Holy Treasures and the Sacred Casket in the Shrine of Atum-Ra.”
    “Oh yeah ? Just what I mean. So, what yer tellin’ me is that some shiny trinkets and a crusty dead guy in a box’ll save ya from the end of the world? Makes perfect sense to me! We haven’t thought up a name for you folks yet. Guess that’s our fault; since you people’ve been around a while.”
    Tiva laughed long and loud. The more she cackled, the more it seemed to please her rescuer.
    “Look, ah, if those silly rags give you any more trouble, let me know,” Farsa mumbled, as she glanced sheepishly up and down the yard. The laughter was starting to draw attention.
    Tiva snorted, then mustered up her courage and asked, “Why d-did you help me? Khavilaks are even more against Lits than Orthies are.”
    The Redhead shrugged. “Khavilaks ain’t against nobody, bynti; it’s bad for business. That’s just a stupid thing people say around here cuz we don’t believe in all their end-of-the-world flap. I just felt sorry for ya, ‘kay! Don’t let them push you around like that!”
    “But how do I not?”
    “First ya gotta decide if you’re gonna drag the Lit baggage around with you the rest of your life or join the real world.”
    Tiva shouted through gritted teeth. “I want to join the real world!”
    Farsa laughed in her face. “Sure, kid. When ya find out where the real ‘real world’ is, gimme a holler. Until then, I’ll see ya around.”
     

T
    he etchings on the stone reinforced their ideograph regulation of Tiva’s world with archaic repetitions. She didn’t comprehend much of what they said, but what she could follow seemed to forbid many things that everybody either did secretly, or wished they could get away with doing.
    She wanted to bang her head against the slab until her brains gushed out. The holy power that supposedly came from Atum-Ra’s Cask had lost its ability to burn