Moonscatter Read Online Free PDF

right now, not wait for morning. And he should be careful, real careful.”
    â€œHah! You think I didn’t think of that?” He leaned forward, squinted at the moonlit area in front of the house; the macain tied there earlier were gone. “The meeting must be over.”
    Tuli sniffed. “Course it is, you heard Nilis.”
    â€œHunh!” He slid off the macai’s back. “Get up that wall, you, before Da wears out your bottom.” He led Labby toward the corral. “Girls.”

CHAPTER II:
    THE QUEST
    Her Noris stands high on the mountain, black boots ankle deep in cold stone, his narrow elegant form a darkness half obscured by swirls of snow and mist—cold, cold, so cold. Pale hands reach for her, sad eyes plead with her. He touches her, catches her hands in his—cold, so cold.
    â€œHelp me, Serroi,” he whispers and the words are splinters of ice tearing into her flesh—cold, cold, so cold.
    â€œCome to me, dearest one,” he cries to her. Stone creeps around his knees while below, far below, the valley stretches out in golden splendor, golden warmth. “Help me,” he pleads. Gray and relentless, the stone rises past his waist—cold, so cold. His hands reach to her again. She feels feather touches on her face—cold, cold, so cold.
    â€œCome to me, daughter, come to me, my child.” The stone closes around his neck; the yearning in his eyes touches the long-denied yearning frozen deep within her—oh cold, so cold.
    â€œLet me be, father, let me be, teacher,” she whispers and sees before the stone closes over his head the agony in his eyes, an agony without measure as the pain in her is without measure—cold, so terribly cold.
    Moonlight slanted silver through the window, painting an oblong of broken silver on Serroi’s body. She turned and turned in her troubled sleep, side and back and stomach, caught in dreams she could neither banish nor wake from.
    Her Noris reclines on black velvet before a crackling fire. She is a small girl, comfortable and happy beside his divan, half-sitting, half-lying on piled-up pillows, silken pillows glowing silver, crimson, amber, azure, violet, emerald, midnight blue. His hand drops, strokes her hair, begins pulling soft curls through his fingers. The fire is no warmer than the quiet happiness between them.
    â€œNo!” Serroi jerked up from her sweat-sodden pillow, leaped from her bed and reached the door before she woke sufficiently to remember she was home, home and safe, safe in the Valley where Ser Noris could not come. Once, long ago, he’d tried using her as a key to unlock the Biserica defenses for him. She pressed her face against the door’s polished wood, squeezing back tears she refused to shed. Now I’m no key, I’m a lever and you’re using me to force an opening for you. It won’t work, won’t, can’t work. I would have done anything for you once, but not now . “Not now,” she whispered.
    Still trembling, she tumbled back to the bed and sat wearily on its edge, dropping her head into her hands. “Maiden bless, I’m tired. Let me sleep, will you? Please. Please, let me be.” Her eyes burned. She rubbed them then lifted her head to gaze out the window toward the shadowy granite cliff across the valley. “You’re up there now, aren’t you? Wanting all this not for what it is, wanting it because you can’t have it, wanting it though it would turn to dust and ashes at your touch.” She shivered in spite of the night’s warmth at the thought of that touch, feeling a painful mixture of revulsion and desire. Her lips curved tiredly up then fell to a bitter line. “If only you knew, my Noris, you betray yourself with every dream you send to torment me. You show your own weakness, not mine … ah, Maiden bless, that’s a lie. My weakness too, too much mine.” She turned her eyes from the cliff but