The Ghost Sister Read Online Free PDF Page A

by the warmth of the beasts. They followed us as far as the boundaries of the summer tower's defense, then floated off into the branches of the trees. In Gehent they call them spirits, and they made me shiver. It was almost dark now, and the brightening stars hung over the valley. Standing before the tower, we could see the defense shimmering like a heat haze; it prickled across my skin. Sereth and Eiru and I stood before it, sinking our awareness into our land senses and allowing ourselves to connect to the defense. It felt like the waves of warmth that drift up from the ground in summer. Inside my mind I felt something fit together, as though we were the key and the defense was a lock, as if it recognized us in some way. A moment later, it melted back into the ground and was gone.
    Once the defense was down, we settled the murai in the old stable stalls at the far end of the inner courtyard and Sereth helped Mevennen inside while I saw to the mounts. Vevey appeared unflatteringly pleased to have me down from her back. I stayed for a while, brushed her coat clean ofdust and insects and gave her meat for the night; she could hunt when the little herd went up into the highlands.
    Then I went back into the hall: a long gallery, dark-paneled. It smelled of age and dust, but it was not as bad as I'd feared. I knew that clan members sometimes used the place as a waystation; my brother had been here in the spring and had said that the hall and the rooms above were livable. There would have been little point in bringing Mevennen here, otherwise. It could do with some cleaning, though. There was an appalling rush of soot and smoke from the hearth at the far end of the room as a bird's nest came down the flue and landed in an untidy heap of twigs in the grate.
    Coughing ensued and Sereth reappeared, smudged with soot.
    “Well,” she said, when she could speak. “It could be worse, I suppose. I told you there was a leak in the defense. A bird must have got through. Never mind. I'm going to have a bath as soon the water heats up. Eiru's lighting the fires. She thinks the stoves should still be in working order, though I don't suppose they've been lit much since the old days.”
    “Where's Mevennen?”
    “I've put her in one of the upstairs rooms and made sure she's as comfortable as possible with the blankets we brought. Eleres,” she added, putting a hand on my arm, “do you think it really will help her if she stays here for a while? I know it's quite a way from the sea, but even so …”
    I looked down at Sereth's hand, automatically noting her long, elegant fingers and the tattooed symbols of her name around her thumb, and sighed. “I don't know, Ser. But we have to try something.”
    “No one's ever been cured of being a ghost.”
    “Yes they have. What about the lover of Yr En Lai? She was landblind, just like Mevennen, and he took her to Out-reven and she was healed.”
    “That's just a legend, Eleres. A story about people who might not have even existed and a place that isn't real.”
    “But who knows for certain that Outreven isn't real? None of the migration routes go through the Great Eastern Waste, do they, unless the
mehed
follow the landlines into the wilderness.” At the mention of the
mehed
, a lost, blank look came over Sereth's face. I reached out and cupped her pointed chin in my hands. “Sereth? Are you all right?”
    “I'm just tired, that's all,” she said, suddenly dismissive. “I need to get some rest.” Her face was closed, the proud gaze concealed behind shuttered lids and her mouth down-turned. I parted from her on the landing, swaying with fatigue.
    But when I finally reached my bed—blankets slung over one of the dusty frames—I could not get to sleep. Once again my senses drifted, trying to accommodate to the new place in which I found myself. This valley was gentler country than my home, but the tug and pull of the sea was so much a part of me that I missed it. It was like trying to