The Last Sin Eater Read Online Free PDF Page A

quiet.
    “It’s her fault I missed!”
    Fagan waded back to shore with his catch. “I said leave her be, Cull.” He looked up at me standing at a distance. “What’re ye doing this far afield, Cadi Forbes?”
    “Go on and tell him, Katrina Anice,” Lilybet whispered, still concealed among the leafy branches behind me. “Maybe he’ll help you.”
    “She made me miss!” Cull said, the spear gripped in his hand.
    Fagan turned on him. “This is Kai land and I decide who’s welcome. If ye canna hold yer tongue, get yer gear and go!” He yanked his fish from the spear and bent down to slip a thin piece of rope through its gills and out its mouth. Dropping it back into the water, he left it drifting with two others.
    “I dinna say she wasn’t welcome,” Cull said sullenly. “I just don’t like people sneaking up on me is all.”
    “I dinna mean to scare ye, Cullen Hume.”
    Cull’s face darkened. “I wasna scared!”
    “Yes you were,” Glynnis laughed. “Yer face went white as the underbelly of that fish.”
    Cull turned on his sister, and with a shrieking laugh she darted away. At a safe distance, she taunted him more. “Cullen was scared. Cullen was scared.” When he pitched a rock at her, she ducked. Straightening again, she stuck out her tongue at him and continued the harangue. “You missed me! You missed me!”
    “On purpose,” he shouted at her. “If I hit ye, ye’d just go crying home to Mama.” Turning his back on her, he glared at me as though all his misery was my fault. And maybe it was, since I was the one who’d startled him in the first place and given Glynnis the ammunition for torment.
    “So?” Fagan said. “What’re you doing on Kai land?”
    He was looking square at me.
    “I wasna thinking on whose land I was. I was just following the river.”
    “Following to where?”
    I shrugged, for I wasn’t sure I could trust them with my quest. Cull seemed downright unfriendly. Though Fagan was playing gentleman, he might tire of it quick enough if I mentioned the sin eater. After a minute of waiting for an answer, Fagan gave a shrug and headed out to the fishing rock again.
    “When ye going to quit?” Cull called out to him.
    “When I’ve got me one more.”
    “That’s what you said about the last one!”
    “Cadi’ll need one to roast over the coals.”
    I blushed, embarrassed by Cull’s resentful stare. “Thank ye kindly, Fagan Kai, but I gotta be going.” I edged toward the woods.
    “Stand fast. It’ll only take me a few minutes.” Fagan stood poised on the rock, his spear raised once more.
    One didn’t ignore the command of a Kai, be he the father, Brogan, or one of his three sons. Even this one, the youngest and least, commanded deference. I stood as I’d been told, wishing I had never let myself be seen, while at the same time glad to have gained some small bit of attention from one so important in our mountains. I had always been drawn to this boy. He measured up to Iwan.
    Fagan cast his spear and leaned forward quickly. Grabbing the end, he lifted it high, sporting a writhing fish on the end. I expected him to give a yelp of triumph as he had before, but this time he returned to the riverbank with an air of dignity.
    Glynnis came back, giving over her badgering of her brother. She admired Fagan’s catch with fulsome words and then turned a jaundiced eye upon me. “Does yer mama know where ye are?”
    “She doesna mind my wandering.”
    Cullen gave a short laugh. “I heard she ain’t been right in the head since—”
    I ran for the woods. Fagan called out to me, but I didn’t stop. I was not going to stand and hear the rest of what Cullen Hume had to say, Fagan Kai or no Fagan Kai.
    Diving into the leafy branches, I raced between the trees heading up the hill and along the wooded hillside.
    “Cadi!”
    Ducking into some thick bushes, I crouched down, out of breath. Sitting as far back in the leafy cave as I could, I drew my knees up tight against my