Son of Avonar Read Online Free PDF

There’s trouble here someways. We’d best get her afoot as soon as can be, and put some leagues in between us.”
    A hand gouged my aching abdomen, forcing me to cry out as I stumbled out of sleep.
    â€œThere, there, child. We must knead your belly a bit to stop the bleeding. You’ll do better in a day or three.” The hand pressed and squeezed again, then took my own hand and forced me to do it, too. “Feel your womb harden. That’s the way it must be.”
    A worried face hovered above me in the dust-flecked light. Unlike that of the turbaned physician, this face was connected to a body—a small and wiry woman with broken teeth. Her gray curls were tied up in a red scarf, and her face was gently weathered.
    â€œHere, my man Jonah’s bringing summat to perk you up.” A flap at the end of the wagon flopped open to let in soggy sunlight and the hunchbacked soup-maker from the market. The old man had wispy white hair and soft brown eyes that seemed to embrace the old woman when he looked at her.
    â€œThank—”
    The old couple shushed me with a spoonful of soup. While they fed me, they gabbled about everything: business in the market, good prospects for the coming season, too much rain for the early crops. “We’re headed south for Dunfarrie. It’s planting time. If you’ve a place we can leave you on the way . . . friends who’ll care for you?”
    I shook my head. All our friends were dead. Like the books and the pictures, the few who had shared Karon’s secret had been destroyed. He had been forced to hear them die, one by one: Martin, Julia, Tanager, Tennice, everyone he cared about. It had almost undone him. His tormentors told him he wasn’t to know my fate, and they would taunt him with a different cruel story every day. But they never knew he could read my thoughts, or speak to me without words, or bury himself in my love so deeply that what they did to his body didn’t matter. Until the end—until the fire.
    â€œI didn’t mean to cause you more grief,” said the old woman in distress. “We’ll take you with us until you can see your way, little girl. Old Jonah and Anne will have you up, if for nothing but to get away from our foolish prattle.”
    â€œVengeance is my right,” I said. “My duty . . .” But not on that night.
    The old woman gathered me in her arms and rocked me softly, for at last weakness overwhelmed me, and I wept until there could have been no tears left in the world.
    But I would never weep again. I was a Leiran warrior’s daughter, and by the shields of my ancestors, I would not weep.

CHAPTER 4
    When I woke, I was startled to find Aeren’s face an arm’s length from my own. He sat on the floor cross-legged, peering at me quizzically, his finger poised to touch my cheeks. I sat up abruptly, and he jerked his hand away.
    â€œKeep your paws to yourself,” I said, straightening my shift and running my fingers through my tangled hair, wishing he would point his eyes in some other direction, wishing I knew some way to banish dreams.
    Aeren knitted his brow at my words, as if working at it hard enough would make the syllables fall together in a way that made sense.
    Was it was worth the trouble to keep talking to the man? Could the sheer number of my words somehow alleviate his lack of understanding? I grimaced at him. “How am I to get rid of you? I’d hoped you were just another bad dream.”
    He tried his best to speak, but again produced nothing beyond hoarse croaking. As his attempts grew more desperate—and remained fruitless—his knuckles turned white and his face scarlet.
    â€œCalm yourself. Like as not you’ve had a blow to the head and it’s unsettled you.” I tried to mime the words. Ineptly, as it appeared. He waved a hand as if to clear the air of my foolishness, while kicking savagely at a chair that toppled onto my