The Burning Shadow Read Online Free PDF Page B

bet he never stroked its flank, she thought. Or held on to its fin and let it carry you out to Sea, while Hylas stood in the shallows and . . .
    Thinking of Hylas made her feel even worse. For a few days last summer, she’d escaped from Keftiu and he’d been her friend. Well, sort of her friend, although they’d fought a lot. At times she’d been hungry and terrified out of her wits—but she’d been free.
    â€œYou’re thinking about that barbarian,” Userref said accusingly.
    â€œHis name is Hylas,” snapped Pirra.
    â€œA
goatherd
.” He shuddered. Like all Egyptians, he regarded goats as unclean. “Is that why you never wear that lion claw I gave you?”
    â€œHe gave me a falcon feather, so I’m keeping the claw for him, it’s only fair.”
    â€œBut you’ll never see him again—”
    â€œYou don’t know that—”
    â€œâ€”and I got that claw for
you,
to keep you safe.”
    â€œI don’t
want
to be safe!” she shouted.
    â€œWell then, the next time you decide to dangle from the roof, I won’t catch you, and you can break your legs!”
    Pirra grabbed her pillow and flumped onto her side.
    There was a furious silence.
    Userref sat cross-legged on the floor beside the incense burner and tented his kilt over his knees. Frowning, he straightened the pleats in the linen. He centered the eye amulet on his chest and passed a hand over his smooth-shaven brown scalp. His fingers were shaking. He hated losing his temper. He said it was an offense against
maat,
the divine order of his animal-headed gods.
    Beneath her pillow, Pirra touched the little wooden cat he’d carved for her when she was eight. It was yellow with black spots, he called it a “leopard,” and you could make its jaws open and shut by pulling a thong in its belly. She was too old for it, but she loved it so much that when her mother had ordered all her playthings taken away three summers ago, she’d hidden it in the secret hollow under her clothes chest.
    â€œIt would be so much easier,” said Userref quietly, “if you simply
accepted
your fate.”
    â€œLike you? You told me once that to live outside Egypt is to be only half alive.”
    He sighed. “Better half alive than dead. Your mother won’t pardon you again. You know that.”
    His handsome face was severe, but as he spoke, he was stoking the incense burner with his special blend of iris, terebinth gum, and snakeskin—which he said helped shed sorrows as a snake sloughs off its skin.
    Pirra’s eyes stung. Userref was more like an older brother than a slave, but in some ways, they would always be apart. He missed Egypt so much that he shaved his head in mourning, and his greatest fear was that he would die in a foreign land, because then he wouldn’t meet his parents and brother in the afterlife. And yet he’d never once tried to escape. His gods had decreed that he would be a slave on Keftiu, and he must obey their will.
    The heady fragrance of incense stole through the chamber. Userref met her eyes and smiled. “I’ll be with you in Arzawa,” he said. “I’ll look after you. I always do.” As he spoke, he gripped his eye amulet. Pirra knew this was his way of taking an oath.
    â€œI know you will,” she said.
    What she couldn’t tell him was that she too had made an oath.
    She had sworn that she would not let herself be taken to Arzawa. That somehow, whatever it took, she would escape.

6
    I t was still dark when Pirra woke up.
    The lamp by her bed gave off a smoky glow and a whiff of jasmine. Mice scurried in the roof and she heard the distant click of loom-weights.
    Curled on her side, she clutched the little lizard-skin pouch that held her falcon feather and the lion claw. She wondered what Hylas was doing, far to the north across the Sea. Maybe he’d found his sister. Even if he hadn’t,