Artemis Invaded Read Online Free PDF Page A

ask—although he wasn’t sure he wanted the answer. Are you sleeping with her? Instead he managed a casual shrug.
    â€œAdara has made clear that she’s not interested in courting games.”
    Terrell nodded. “Julyan resurfacing isn’t going to make matters any easier. I’d hoped he’d drowned.”
    Griffin agreed. He’d gotten to know Julyan fairly well, enough to understand how charming he could be—and how utterly ruthless. The charm made it easy for Griffin to understand why Adara had fallen in love with Julyan, back when they both had been Bruin’s students. It was harder for him to understand what emotions Julyan awakened in her now. Did she still love him? Hate him? Feel something else entirely?
    He decided to pretend that what Adara felt didn’t matter but, looking at the flash of Terrell’s white teeth, he knew he hadn’t fooled anyone, most especially himself.
    Interlude: Not Absolute
    Bad, Good
    Good, Right
    Right, Left
    Left, Abandoned
    Abandoned, Wild
    Wild, Uncontrolled
    Uncontrolled
    Bad? Good?

 
    2
    Ridgewood
    When they were a few hours’ ride out from Ridgewood, Adara slipped from Tarnish’s saddle and handed the reins to Griffin. “Sand Shadow and I will go ahead. I’ll find out if there is room for us at my parents’ farm and, if not, where we can set up our tents.”
    She saw Griffin glance at Tarnish, obviously wondering why she didn’t continue riding, then, as obviously, answering the question for himself. Adara slipped away without offering confirmation.
    So Griffin’s figured out I’m nervous, that I’d like to be able to sneak in and check the place out first. What of it? My home is elsewhere now. Wouldn’t it be rude of me to assume my parents could take me and my friends in at such short notice? True, once I knew our route, I did write ahead to warn them, but …
    Sand Shadow flicked Adara an image of the two of them skulking in enemy-filled darkness through the maze of passages beneath Mender’s Isle. Even without words, the inference was obvious: “You did that. Surely you have nothing to fear here.”
    â€œAre you so certain?” Adara muttered. “The Old One’s minions could only kill me. The blows family deal out can cut into the soul.”
    Sand Shadow huffed in exasperation. During the year and a few months since they had bonded, they had visited Adara’s family only once, and that briefly. They had gone for the wedding of Adara’s younger brother, Orion, to the daughter of an itinerant river trader who had thought settling down on a farm would be ever so much nicer than living on a boat. Using the puma kitten as an excuse, Adara might not have even attended the wedding, but Bruin had insisted.
    The puma’s memories of the event were the enjoyable ones of a kitten who had been much fussed over. Adara’s were less so. She also had been fussed over—both for having passed her training and for having bonded with Sand Shadow. However, that fuss had reminded her once again how she was set apart from her family. Nikole was married and had little ones of her own. Hektor and Elektra had come in for quite a lot of teasing about when would their weddings be … No one had teased her.
    I felt myself a stranger. Many of those attending the wedding had never been farther than Spirit Bay; most had never been even that far. Most followed some variation on the work done by their parents and grandparents, back to the days of the seegnur. I was a huntress.
    Had lingering memories of the events surrounding Orion’s wedding led Adara to that imprudent tumble with Terrell the following midsummer? Had she been seeking proof that she was marriageable, even if she chose not to marry?
    She shoved those thoughts away, concentrating on circling back and around the village, on finding cover where any but a hunter would have sworn there was none. In time, she