The Orphan Read Online Free PDF

will be left with no able-bodied workers at all, just a dying . . .” Her eyes darted toward Frada for the first time, and the words choked in her mouth. “My dear girl . . . you look so much better!”
    Frada nodded weakly, looking toward me for guidance. “We can’t let them destroy Nico,” she said.
    â€œOf course not.” I bolted toward the door. “I’m going to rescue him from the dungeons.”
    â€œHow?” Frada asked.
    â€œHe’s not in the dungeons, you muddleheaded girl!” Zakiti blurted out. “They would not be so merciful!”
    I stopped in the doorway. The dungeons, merciful? What could be worse than the dungeons?
    I thought of the beaten man at the edge of the Royal Gardens. The prisoner in the stocks. “The market . . .” I said, whirling toward Zakiti. “They brought him to the stocks, didn’t they?”
    She looked away, saying not a word.
    As I fled the shop I could hear Frada’s voice, still feeble:
    â€œBe careful, Daria . . .”

CHAPTER EIGHT
    H E WASN’T IN the stocks.
    He was lashed to a wooden stake. The sun bore down on his bruised, bloody face. Above him was a plank of wood with a single word written on it. I may have been a street rat, but I had taught myself to read, and I recognized the script: Thief .
    No. Not Nico. I’m the thief. It should be me.
    I stopped dead in my tracks. I felt as though the air had been sucked out of my lungs. I wanted to run toward him, to untie him and drag him back. But I knew we’d both be dead by the time my arm touched the rope.
    Still, I had to do something. I was doing something. Moving into the square, as if my legs had a will of their own. Every fiber of my being drew me closer to him—slowly, unobtrusively. My brain raced, trying to think of a plan. He would see me soon. Someone would notice.
    A fist closed around my arm, yanking me backward. I lurched away, clenching my fists and ready to fight.
    â€œDaria?” a lilting voice cried out.
    I swallowed hard, looking into the deep brown eyes of my beloved singing instructor, Arwa. When I was a girl, she’d heard me singing in the streets and insisted on teaching me. For months, I had sneaked up to the conservatory’s back entrance, where she would let me in secretly and teach me the technique of beautiful singing, how to support and relax, how to make words and melody fly like a spring breeze.
    Now, in public, we had roles. She was a person of noble birth dressed in rich blue robes, an awilum . I was a street rat on the brink of despair. Our two classes of people did not interact in public. Ever. But she was pulling me along, touching the arm of an untouchable, in full sight of everyone. “T-that boy is Nico—” I stammered, digging in my heels, “my friend—”
    With a strength I would not expect her to have, Arwa pulled me into a side street, where a handful of people went about their daily routines. “Follow me,” she said. “It will appear as if you are my slave. And pretend we are having a routine conversation. You are a brilliant singer, Daria, and I will not let you sacrifice your life to your impulsiveness! Of course I know who the boy is. The guards have countless eyes on him right now. They’re waiting to see if anyone tries to talk to him or help him. They know he did not take the pomegranate. They speak of someone with red hair. They suspect it may have been a small boy.” She turned and raised a chiding eyebrow. “Or a girl.”
    We paused, shrouded in shadow, as I let her words sink in.
    â€œThen I will sacrifice myself,” I declared.
    â€œAnd play right into their plan?” said Arwa with a scoffing laugh. “Over my corpse you will. That tyrant’s wretched piece of fruit is not worth harming a hair on your head or the boy’s. I will help you.”
    Arwa’s eyes shone like torches