Briar's Book Read Online Free PDF Page B

urged his horse forward. His guards followed.

    “You’re getting soaked, all of you,” Lark said, watching the duke go. “Come inside. Where are Briar and Rosethorn and Niko?”
    “In Summersea,” replied Tris shortly as the girls passed Lark. Little Bear would have followed, but Lark shook her head at him.
    “You stay and get wet some more,” she told him firmly. “Rinse that mud out before you come in!” She closed the door in his face.
    Once Sandry and Tris had shed their rain gear, they sat at the table with Lark and Daja. Sandry told them what she knew of the day’s events. Tris watched Lark, not liking what she saw. The laugh lines around the woman’s eyes and mouth had deepened; her lips were tight. She looked weary.
    “I don’t like this,” Daja said quietly when Sandry had finished. “Not at all.” Getting up, she went to the cottage’s shrine in the corner by the front door. With a hand that trembled, she lit the candles for health and luck and set a pinch of incense to burn.
    “I knew they had read omens for an epidemic,” Lark commented, watching Daja. “Moonstream summoned the full temple council and all the healers while you were gone and told us. Ah, I was being silly.” She scrubbed her face with her hands.
    “Silly how?” asked Sandry, putting an arm around her teacher.
    “It’s been three years since our last epidemic. I’d hoped it might stay that way forever. I don’t know how Crane’s going to manage without Rosethorn,” Lark said, getting up to make tea. “He’ll say she got herself thrown into quarantine on purpose.”
    “What has Crane to do with anything?” Tris inquired. None of the young people at Discipline Cottage liked Crane, the mage who was also first, or head, dedicate of Winding Circle’s Air Temple.
    “He and Rosethorn are always set to finding the nature of any new illness and creating a remedy,” explained Lark.
    “He and Rosethorn
work
together?” asked Daja, shocked. “They
hate
each other.”
    “I didn’t say they liked it,” replied Lark with a tiny smile.
    Little Bear crept in the back door, looking as meek as a thoroughly soaked large dog could look. His ears were down; his tail gave the tiniest of wags. Since the mud had been rinsed from his coat, no one told him to go. As Lark poured out tea, the dog trotted over to them. Something made him rock back on his haunches and whine deep in his throat.
    “What?” Tris demanded, wiping her lenses with her handkerchief.
    Little Bear circled the table, sniffing each girl. He whined again.
    “You don’t get fed until this evening,” Daja said curtly.
    The dog trotted into Briar’s room; a moment later they heard him whimper. Coming to the door of the main room, Little Bear barked sharply.
    “Briar’s not coming,” Sandry told him, her mouth quivering. “Now stop it.”
    “I don’t see how he can know Briar’s not coming back,” remarked Daja impatiently. Frightened by the other meaning of what she’d just said, she added hurriedly, “Not right away. He’s not coming back
right away.”
    Sandry and Lark made the gods-circle on their chests.
    Tris thrust herself away from the table so hard that she knocked over the bench on which she sat. Struggling to pick it up, she cried, “It’s their own fault! What were they doing mucking about the Mire anyway? Everyone knows the poor breed disease!”
    Sandry and Daja held their breath as Lark gazed soberly at Tris, raising her eyebrows. Even Tris knew she had gone too far. Her face was beet red with embarrassment and fury, but she met Lark’s brown eyes squarely.
    “If they could afford decent places to live, and expensive health spells, they would not be poor, then, would they?” asked Lark.
    That made Tris look down. She scuffed her foot along the wooden floor.
    “I know you are upset,” Lark continued in that quiet, disappointed tone that made the girls wish they could hide. “You four have not spent a night apart since you came to