Redwing Read Online Free PDF

he’d held back that loaf of bread from Aydin and his giant dog.

SIX
    S amik sniffed at the steaming cup Rowan handed him—not a true tea, just hot water with a few dried bergamot leaves thrown in—and pointedly set it aside. Surely Rowan didn’t consider this drinkable?
    â€œSo,” he said, leaning back and folding his arms. “Your turn now to ask the questions.”
    Rowan fidgeted in his chair. The little twitch in his right eye, the one Samik had first noticed when Rowan was telling the appalling story of his family’s death, had started up again. Rowan was dying to ask more about his sister’s ghost, that was obvious. Yet he had also been violently upset at Samik’s observation and had abruptly changed the subject. Samik wondered if he’d stumbled into some primitive Backender taboo.
    â€œIf you’re Tarzine, why don’t you have an accent?” Rowan finally blurted out.
    â€œThat’s easy. My mother is a Backender. She taught me.”
    â€œA what?”
    â€œA Backender.” Samik shrugged. “It is what we call you. Because you have the back end of the Island.”
    Extraordinary. Samik watched Rowan’s face redden as he seemed to go through some internal struggle—could he really be about to start an argument about which end was the back end? But whatever was angering him, he dropped it and instead asked, “Then how did your parents meet?”
    â€œMy father saw her in the slave market in Baskir, and was so struck by her beauty—especially her pale blond hair, a rare color in our lands—that he bought her. Soon after, he set her free, and soon after that they were married.”
    Rowan suddenly looked as if he had bitten down on something vile, and Samik felt his stomach tighten. He had seen this reaction before, had learned in fact to tell only his most deeply trusted friends about his mother’s past. But there was no slavery in Prosper, and he hadn’t thought to find such prejudice here.
    â€œYour mother was a slave ?”
    â€œI have told you she was.” It was Samik’s turn to be angry now, his voice cold and tight.
    â€œA Prosperian citizen, sold as a slave?”
    He had misunderstood. It wasn’t disdain for his slave mother he was seeing, it was some kind of national outrage. How simpleminded to think slavery was somehow worse for Prosperians!
    â€œWhy not?” he answered. “Slavers don’t care who you are. Our own people are taken.”
    â€œSo you don’t agree with the slave trade?”
    â€œOf course I do not.” Samik glared at him, the pale eyes so fierce that Rowan hesitated before he spoke again.
    â€œBut your father…”
    â€œMy father does not keep slaves. He bought a person he could not stand to see in chains and freed her. She is not the only one he has freed. He knows this does nothing to fight the trade itself, but he is an emotional person and sometimes his heart wins over his head.” Samik offered a frosty smile. “My mother, at least, is glad that it does.”
    â€œFine. Sorry.” Rowan made a show of slicing more bread and refilling his cup, and Samik relished his little victory.
    â€œNext question?” Rowan looked rather startled at Samik’s willingness to continue, and he hesitated before diving in once more.
    â€œWell, then. What are you doing here in Prosper?”
    â€œAh.” At last, something worth talking about. “That is a very long story, and I will need more than this dishwashing swill to get me through it. Do you have any spirits?”
    â€œSpirits?” Rowan’s eyes grew round, and Samik remembered with amusement that the word spirits had two meanings.
    â€œWine, ale, brandy. Corn mash in a pinch—maybe I could put some in with these gray leaves…”
    â€œOh, that. I’m afraid it’s all gone. I—well, I finished it one night when I couldn’t