Sing the Four Quarters Read Online Free PDF Page A

peered up under her hood. "Witnessed," he said. "You look like you've fallen out of the Circle, Nees." His deep voice rumbled with concern. "Rough Walk?"
    "Long Walk," she told him, already moving. "I'll see you later."
    The rain came down in icy sheets as she made her way diagonally across Citadel Square. A dry route existed through barracks and stables and storerooms, but she wasn't up to negotiating her way past their occupants. It was faster and easier to get wet.
    Eventually, putting one foot in front of the other, she arrived at the main entrance to the hall. Lifting her head, she blew a drop of water off the end of her nose, pulled the door open, and went inside.
    The bard sitting duty in the main hall glanced up from her book. "You're dripping."
    "It's raining."
    "Annice?"
    Annice shook her hood back, spraying the immediate area with a fine patina of water.
    "Well, I guess the Circle does hold everything. Welcome home, Annice." The older woman rested her fore arms on the desk and leaned forward, frowning. "You look awful."
    "Thank you." If one more person told her that tonight, she was going to puke on their shoes. "If you'll record that I'm back, Ceci, I'm going up to bed. I don't even want to think about recall until morning."

    "Do you want me to have the kitchen send something up?"
    No. Except that she was starving. "Soup and bread. Thanks."
    Ceci turned to watch as she started toward the stairs. "You going to make it all the way to your rooms?" she asked dubiously.
    "Of course I am. I'm fine. I'm just a little tired. It's my punishment for sitting on my ass all the way from Vidor."
    "Riverboat?"
    "What else."
    "You push?"
    "A little."
    "Captain won't like that."
    "Extenuating circumstances."
    Ceci laughed. "They always are. Stasya's out in the city."
    "Good for her."
    "When she comes in, shall I tell her you're back or let her find out for herself?"
    Annice thought about it for a moment, then called down from the top of the stairs. "You'd better tell her. You know how she hates surprises."
    "You're the one who wanted to be on the fourth floor," she reminded herself a few moments later, resting on the third floor landing. "And you're the one who wanted rooms at the back of the building not the front. You've got no one to blame for this final effort but yourself."
    The soup and bread very nearly made it to her rooms before she did. She'd barely Sung the lamp alight and checked to see that the kigh dancing on the wick was safely contained when the server arrived.
    "Just set the tray here," she said, lifting a jumbled heap of slates off a round table and searching desperately for a place to put them. As usual, Stasya had left their common room looking like a storm had recently passed through. Finally, as it seemed to be the only clear space remaining, she stuffed the slates under a chair, stood her instrument case against the wall, and shrugged her pack off to crash to the floor.
    The older man clicked his tongue—at the noise or the mess, Annice wasn't sure which—and nudged a pile of colored chalks aside with the edge of the tray. "I brought you some cheese," he said, straightening. "Need more than just bread and soup after a Long Walk."
    "I only walked in from Riverton today, Leonas," Annice pointed out, removing a half-strung harp and a pair of torn breeches from her favorite chair. "Not all the way from Ohrid."
    Leonas ignored her. "Probably haven't had any decent food for the whole two quarters."
    "I actually ate quite well."
    He snorted and looked her over. "Gained a little weight, did you?"
    Annice sighed. She couldn't win. "Good night, Leonas."

    "Good night, Princess."
    "Leo…"
    "If I can call my Giz Cupcake when she never was one," he interrupted, glaring back at her from the threshold, "I can call you Princess when you aren't one no more. Get some sleep. You look terrible." Jerking the door closed behind him, he left Annice no room to argue.
    Leonas had already been serving at the Bardic Hall for thirty