Kirith Kirin (The City Behind the Stars) Read Online Free PDF

off in a secret place, doing a service to one on whom our hopes are resting.”
     
    I nodded very solemnly, and she adjusted my tunic to hang properly. Then she gave me a gift. She unlocked the heavy oak chest in her room with a key from the ring on her waist, and drew out another wooden box from inside it, and opened it with another key, revealing another box, and this one I recognized, very small, wooden, with silver hinges, carved with strange writing; I had caught her holding it once and she had not liked it.
     
    “I’m giving this to you now because there won’t be time in the morning, I’ll be busy with the breakfast when you’re getting ready. This is a very special gift. It’s dangerous even to open it and show it to you.” She let me see the box, opening it partway. Inside was a necklace on a silver chain from which a small pendant hung. The pendant was curious, a bird impaled on a claw. A jewel in the center, glinting in the lamplight. I tried to touch the necklace but Mama said to leave it alone. The box was carved with runes inside the lid as well as out. Mama closed the lid after a few moments. She had a look on her face as though she were listening to some voice. “Take it out of the box as soon as you reach Arthen. Don’t let anyone see it, ever. Your grandmother gave it to me and her father gave it to her. It belonged to a very wise woman who once served the Red King. Remember, show it to no one.”
     
    “But Mama, you should save this for one of the girls –“
     
    “Your grandmother told me it was meant for you. She always knew.” She looked at me tenderly, drew me close. “I don’t know what it means and neither did she. But do exactly as I’ve told you, because she said it was important and would save your life, and I believe her.”
     
    She would not even let me look at it, but pressed it in my hand. “Keep it in the box until morning, where it will be hidden. But don’t take the box with you into the forest. It can’t return to Arthen. Take the necklace out of the box and throw the box away. Say nothing about this to anyone, not even Jarred or your uncle.” She hurried me out of her room then. I found my bed and hid the box and the necklace under the mattress where Jarred would not roll over it in his sleep.
     
    3
     
    In the morning a storm blew over the whole world. Gloom of it seeped through the bit of window in our attic bedroom. As soon as my eyes opened I jumped from the covers and stood at the window, where the dark clouds were rolling across heaven.
     
    Already I could hear voices in the kitchen, counterpoint to the wind that raced through the visible hills. In the dim yard stood saddled horses, reins trailing the dirt. A pack was tied to the back of the black horse I would be riding. The horse waited patiently, once turning his gray eyes toward the window from which I watched him.
     
    “You’ll be leaving pretty soon, I bet,” Jarred said, coming up beside me at the window. “Do you think you can really ride that horse when he gets going?”
     
    “Yes, I think so.” I quietly dressed, sliding the small box into the sleeve-pocket of my coat. From outside came the sound of distant thunder.
     
    “I hope I get a horse like that someday,” said Jarred.
     
    “I wish you were coming too.”
     
    “Not to live in Arthen, not for anybody’s money.”
     
    “Is it a bad place?”
     
    “There’s every kind of goblin and monster in it from what I’ve heard. And probably witches and bloodsuckers on top of it.”
     
    “I think people make up those stories,” I said, and Jarred laughed as we heard more thunder rolling over the hills, followed by Mama’s voice calling us to breakfast.
     
    The storm worried her more than Uncle Sivisal, who claimed the ride would be easier under the cover of rain. We ate our breakfast quickly. Papa mentioned waiting to see if the sky cleared, but Mama said harshly that the sky would not be clearing and we should get ourselves