The Secret of Dreadwillow Carse Read Online Free PDF Page B

refused to get out of bed. “Why should I bother?” she asked. “I’m not learning anything. He’s not teaching me what I need to know.”
    â€œBegging your pardon, Your Highness,” Sirilla said, “but you
are
the Queen Ascendant. He cannot refuse your command.”
    Jeniah considered this. Never once had she used her authority to get what she wanted.
Kind words win hearts; cross words turn them
, her mother had always said. And it was advice that had worked for them both. Until now.
    Unhappy that it had come to this, Jeniah quickly dressed and went in search of her tutor. He
would
answer her questions today. But she found the library empty. Asking around the castle, Jeniah learned he was in the gardens just outside Lithe Tower.
    Jeniah found Skonas standing near a six-foot-tall stone obelisk with a great flame on top that burned morning, noon, and night. This was a memorial to all past monarchs. An inscription ran along the monolith’s base:
In the name of peace
. Skonas stood with his head bowed, as if praying.
    Jeniah summoned her best royal voice. It was the tone her mother used to let people know she would not be swayed from her course. She walked right up to Skonas, hands planted firmly on her hips, and leveled her most serious stare at him. “I have questions for you.”
    Skonas raised his head. “Questions are the lamplight that lead us from the darkness. And you know what lamplight really is, yes?” He leaned in and met her serious stare. “
Fire
. You should tread carefully, Your Highness.”
    But Jeniah wouldn’t be intimidated. “Then surely answers extinguish the flames.”
    â€œSo you’re saying answers return you to the dark?”
    â€œWell, n-no . . . I—I mean . . .”
    â€œHow can you seek answers if you don’t know what they really are?”
    Jeniah growled. He was being tricky again.
    â€œAs Queen Ascendant, I command you to answer me: Why can’t I go into Dreadwillow Carse?”
    The tutor sniffed and turned his gaze to the sky. He held out his forearm, wrapped in his falconer’s glove. “Why do you think?”
    The princess stifled a volcanic scream.
    But she continued with her firm, royal voice. “I’ve been told that if any monarch goes into Dreadwillow Carse, the Monarchy will fall. If I’m to be queen, I need to know what that means. Is it a prophecy?”
    Skonas tilted his head thoughtfully. Then he said, “I don’t believe in prophecies. They’re too . . . absolute. People are too fickle to adhere to absolutes. Prophecies are stories that cheat so the storyteller can pretend he knew all along what would happen.
    â€œWhat you’ve been told is a
warning
. Quite different. You’ve heard plenty of those in your life, I’d imagine. ‘If you touch the fire, then you’ll get burned.’ ‘If you play in the rain, then you’ll catch a cold.’ If. Then. It’s a choice. Prophecies don’t offer a choice. But warnings do. And living is all about choices, wouldn’t you agree?”
    This was the most Skonas had said to Jeniah since that first day. It seemed using her authority as Queen Ascendant was the key. She continued. “But those warnings make sense,” she said. “At some point, someone touched a fire and got burned. So they warned others. No monarch has ever entered the Carse, or the Monarchy would have fallen by now. How can you warn someone about something that clearly has never happened?”
    A smile bullied its way onto Skonas’s lips. “Strangely clever,” he said. Skonas said that to Jeniah a lot. He seemed to think it was a compliment. But Jeniah could never be sure.
    Overhead, Gerheart cried. A moment later, the falcon landed on Skonas’s arm. The tutor fed his bird a chunk of bread and then said, “Not all warnings are perfect, you know.” He held his gloved hand over the fire