Raven's Ladder Read Online Free PDF Page B

was beautiful and fragile. His mother had protected her as if she were a rare greenbird’s egg, hoping the family would earn enough treasure to buy themselves into Bel Amica, where the girl could grow up in peace. To Pop she was just another pair of hands. Wynn had pictured her waking without him, rising with double the chores. He turned the vawn around and ventured back through the storm, spitting. Sure enough, his father stood waiting, that belt of twisted horsetail hair so much heavier and harsher for the rain.
    Tonight that memory gave him pause. But if he could win a respectable position among Abascar’s people, he might collect enough prizes to buy himself and Cortie a place in House Bel Amica.
    The mare’s breath puffed through the slats.
    “Don’t be scared,” said Wynn. “We don’t need any of them. Tomorrow we’ll run.”
    And then, the ground shook.
    For half a moment, a ghost loomed in Wynn’s imagination—his father, rising alive with the belt in his hand.
    Wynn ran from the stable up to the cave where children slept. Finding it empty, he staggered, steadying himself with the broom he still held fast, like a boatman with an oar but no boat, while the ground rolled in waves. He needed to see Cortie’s face, know she was alive.
    Emerging from the dust-choked throat of the Blackstone Caves, he plunged into the murmuring crowd. Boys and girls leaned into one another like anxious lambs on the ledge. Parents called for children. Guards shouted directions. Shattering blackstone shrieked deep within.
    As the crowd quieted, gossip spread like foam tossed over rapids.
A chamber’s collapsed. Some have been buried
.
    “What is it with House Abascar?” Wynn muttered, straining to hear names. “What is it with all the collapses?”
    He dropped the broom when he saw his sister. He caught her up just as the news took a terrible turn. Say-ressa, the healer, was among those buried inside when a wall became a cavalcade of rocks.
    “Why?” Cortie whispered, wide-eyed. “She’s the one who makes things better.”
    “Don’t worry,” he told her, worrying. “I’ll take care of you.”
    Cortie put her head on his shoulder. He thought she was crying, but then her tiny hand patted his back. “Don’t be scared, big brother,” she whispered.
    That’s when he realized he was the one who was shaking. “This is stupid,” he said. “Come on, Cortie. I’m finding you a safer place to sleep.”
    They tiptoed down into the dark, all the way to the armory’s piles of shields and plated armor. Cortie crawled into one of those hollow, burnished suits and hid like a cat.
    “Stay here tonight,” Wynn said. “Sleep here from now on. I don’t want to come back and find you’ve been crushed.”
    “Come back? Where are you going?”
    “Tomorrow night Cal-raven’s gonna…” He heard voices, soldiers approaching from the stable cave below.
    He seized a heavy metal shirt made for a massive defender—probably Bowlder—and crouched down within it. He watched reflections from the soldiers’ torches flicker in golden ripples all around. Peering out through the right-arm window, he counted six silhouettes. They carried quivers. And they were angry.
    In those urgent whispers, he learned about the ambush, the king’s escape, the quake’s interruption of their pursuit, and their intent to try again before they were found out. Soon.
    When the voices diminished, Wynn dared to stick his head out through the suit’s open shoulder. The soldiers had set down their quivers and left a torch in a torchstand. Leaning into one another like hunting dogs, they were halfway up the corridor toward the crowds.
    “Conspiracy.” The word was delicious on his tongue. “Cortie, it’s a conspiracy.” He trembled with a sense of purpose, his head rising through the open collar. “This is it. I’ll show Cal-raven I’m useful. And he’ll never assign me to stable duty again.”
    In the shine of the armor where Cortie lay hidden, he