The Firebrand Legacy Read Online Free PDF Page A

have
killed him.”
    Mom shivered. “Please…let’s go home.”
    Carine ran her fingers through her hair.
“Didda didn’t come back when he said he would, which means
something bad happened to him. Now, someone has killed the
Heartless One —”
    “No one can kill a Heartless One,” Mom
said.
    “Then it was someone just as powerful.” Panic
flurried through her veins. “We have to get out of here, Mom. We
have to leave the city—and the kingdom.”
    Mom relented, and they ran until a door
marked with a heart swung open. The man was a baker. Even now as he
stood in the doorway assessing the two people in front of him,
flour caked his pants and palms. He was thin as a rail and
tall.
    Carine stepped back. Baker or not, the man
had a knife in his hand and fear in his eyes. His gaze flicked
between Carine and her mom until he seemed to decide on Carine. He
turned the blade in his hands.
    His eyes and door told the story: Selius had
threatened his family as well. Instead of heading for the pig pens,
he was searching the streets for a human heart to offer.
    “I’m sorry,” he said softly, clicking the
door shut behind him.
    Carine stepped back, but he stepped forward
in turn. When Carine stepped back again, her shoe caught a broken
cobblestone, and she fell. Mom swept her arm out to block Carine.
The three stood frozen, none of them willing to commit to more
dramatic action.
    “He’s dead,” Carine said, blurting out the
rest of her explanation. “The Heartless One is dead, I swear. His
body’s by the river. I swear! Please, we’ve bought your bread
before. I promise he’s dead. Don’t kill us.”
    The baker wavered. Carine scrambled onto her
feet, but she didn’t dare to stand.
    “But there’s no flame.” The baker froze. “The
only way to defeat a Heartless One is to pass him through two
tongues of a dragon’s flame.”
    “She’s telling the truth,” Mom said. His
expression said that he wanted to believe them. “See for yourself.
His body’s by the river.”
    “I’m sorry,” he repeated. “I have five kids.
They can’t live without me or their mom.”
    Carine’s system pulsed with adrenaline. She
and Mom bolted east. The baker jumped after them.
    At a gap between two houses, Carine skirted
through the alleyway onto a parallel road, grabbing her mom’s hand
and pulling her along. The baker tripped over something behind
them.
    “You go on,” Mom said. “I’ll hold him
off.”
    Carine pulled her hand, too angry to refuse
out loud. They couldn’t split up—not a chance.
    “That ship!” breathed Mom, inching ahead.
“That ship on the right, do you see? Someone’s boarding it. It’s
going to leave Esten!”
    Just as she reached the end of the lane,
thirty feet from the abandoned marketplace, the baker beat Carine
back with a heavy hand.
    She crashed onto the stone.

8 The Prowler
    Mom swirled and shrieked. Before the baker
could raise his knife, Mom beat him with a rock, and he
tumbled.
    “Go,” Mom said as Carine scrambled to
stand.
    The baker jumped up and Mom met his eyes.
Carine looked between them, too afraid to leave her mother, but
more afraid to stay still another moment.
    “Go!”
    Carine darted toward the ship that rocked in
the salty breeze while Mom clattered south, followed by the baker.
By the time Carine turned on the sand, they had both
disappeared.
    She was alone.
    A rope ladder hung over the side of a cargo
ship. Thirty rungs up, a person stepped from the top rung into the
boat. Someone else leaned over the side to pull the ladder up.
    “Wait!” Carine yelped.
    Even though the middle-aged man saw her, he
reached again for the ladder.
    “Please, wait! I need to board!”
    Carine raced toward the red morning horizon,
not even pausing to take off her boots. She ran until she crashed
into knee-deep water, soaking her dress.
    “You cannot board, madam,” the man said with
a formality that showed he was a servant used to speaking to a
higher class. “I’m sorry.