The Queen of the Tearling Read Online Free PDF

wasn’t dangerous; Barty and Carlin would hardly have allowed her to wear it each day otherwise.
    She stared at the companion jewel, but it simply dangled there smugly, dim lamplight glinting from its many facets. Feeling silly, Kelsea tucked the necklace deep into the breast pocket of her cloak. Perhaps in the daylight it would be easier to see some difference between the two. The envelope went inside the casing of the lamp, and Kelsea watched the flames devour the thick paper, her mind pulsing with low anger. Leave it to Carlin to create more questions than answers.
    She stretched out, looking up at the ceiling of the tent. Despite the men outside, she felt entirely isolated. Every other night of her life, she’d known that Barty and Carlin were downstairs, still awake, Carlin with a book in her hand and Barty whittling or playing with some plant he had found, mixing it up into a useful anesthetic or antibiotic. Now Barty and Carlin were far away, already heading south.
    It’s only me.
    Another low rumble of laughter sounded from around the campfire. Kelsea briefly debated going out there and attempting to at least speak to the guards, but she discarded the idea. They spoke of women, or battles, or perhaps old companions . . . her presence wouldn’t be welcome. Besides, she was exhausted from the ride and the cold, and her thigh muscles ached horribly. She blew out the lamp and turned over on her side to wait for uneasy sleep.
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    T he next day they rode more slowly, for the weather had turned murky. The air had lost its icy feel, but now a thin, sickly mist clung to everything, wrapping around tree trunks and moving over the ground in visible tides. The country was gradually flattening, the woods growing sparser each hour, trees giving way to thick undergrowth. More animals, most of them strange to Kelsea, began to appear: smaller squirrels and drooling, doglike creatures that would have seemed like wolves but that they were docile and fled at the sight of the troop. But they didn’t see a single deer, and when the morning was well over, Kelsea identified another source of her growing uneasiness: not a single note of birdsong.
    The guards seemed subdued as well. Kelsea had been awakened several times during the night by the continuous laughter from the campfire and had wondered whether they would ever shut up and go to sleep. Now all of their mirth seemed to have departed with the bright weather. As the day wore on, Kelsea noticed more and more of the guards shooting hunted glances behind them, though she could see nothing but trees.
    Near midday, they stopped to water the horses at a small stream that bisected the forest. Carroll pulled out a map and huddled around it with several guards; from the snatches of conversation she overheard, Kelsea gathered that the mist was causing problems, making landmarks difficult to see.
    She limped over to a large, flat rock beside the stream. Sitting down was excruciating, her hip muscles seeming to peel away from the bone when she bent her knees. With some maneuvering, she got herself sitting cross-legged, only to find that her bottom was also aching from hours on the saddle.
    Elston, the hulking, broad-shouldered guard who had ridden beside Kelsea for much of the journey, followed her to the rock and stationed himself five feet away. When she looked up, he grinned unpleasantly, showing a mouthful of broken teeth. She tried to ignore him and stretched out one of her legs, reaching toward her foot. Her thigh muscles felt as though they were being shredded.
    â€œSore?” Elston asked her. His teeth gave him difficulty with enunciating; Kelsea had to think for a moment to figure out what he’d meant.
    â€œNot at all.”
    â€œHell, you can barely move.” He chuckled, then added, “Lady.”
    Kelsea reached out and grabbed her toes. Her thigh muscles screamed, and Kelsea felt them as raw flesh, seams that opened and bled inside her