Wild Blood (Book 7) Read Online Free PDF Page A

even have sufficient buildings repaired to house the settlers, much less establish shops and businesses. I think, though, that once news of the river route begins to reach the merchants, they’ll come on their own. The prospect of greater profits and a wider distribution will bring them.”
    “For both our sakes,” Lord Emaril said grimly, “I hope it’s as you say. I’ve put a great deal of money—Cielman’s and my own—into this venture of yours. And you haven’t even managed to make your peace with your elven neighbors.”
    “Ria and Cyril are the key to that peace,” Lord Sharl said. “We’ll have the ceremony as soon as we reach Allanmere. It’ll give the settlers time to gradually accept the idea of the alliance and pave the way for negotiations with the elves as well. If I can establish a trade between the city and the elves, the city will be able to trade in goods available nowhere else in the settled country, and open up a new market for our own goods, too.”
    “You have a grand dream, little brother,” Lord Emaril said, smiling a little. “But so far that’s all it’s been. And you can’t feed your people on dreams. I’d have thought you’d learned that lesson already.”
    “No one could have expected a barbarian invasion,” Lord Sharl said with a sigh.
    “And nobody expects fires, floods, droughts, crop blight, hail, plague, dragons, and blizzards,” Lord Emaril said wryly.” Yet they come anyway. And a newborn city’s a fragile thing.”
    “If there’s another disaster the likes of the invasion,” Lady Rivkah said quietly, “any city in the world might fall, newborn or not. Cielman itself was spared only because the main force of the army passed too far to the west.”
    Lord Emaril had to agree with that. Bored, Ria nibbled at a sweet cake while High Lord Emaril, Lord Sharl, and Lady Rivkah talked about the proposed journey. Their endless discussions of quantities of seed grain, building materials, trade routes, and expansion rates continued until, despite her discomfort, Ria found herself nodding in her chair. She propped herself up and let a few curls fall into her face to cover her closed eyes and dozed, letting the conversation slide by her.
    She’d never seen a forest, not a real one, but she dreamed of trees all around her, of cool green shadows and the smell of fresh warm earth and growing things. Trees would tower over her as tall grain towered over her when she lay down among it, but the trees would be much taller—taller even than the wall of the keep, as Lady Rivkah had said. She dreamed of innumerable sounds around her, birdsong that she recognized, other rustlings and swishings and cheepings she could not define. This was the world that should have been hers, her brother’s world. For a moment she could almost see him as Lady Rivkah had described the baby she’d seen only briefly, more human than elf, ears round as a human’s, black hair straight, but with their mother’s tawny gold eyes. He’d be tall now like a human, maybe starting to show muscles like Cyril and with hair growing all over him now, too. Unlike Cyril, though, surely he’d understand her, be her friend. He could understand how trapped she felt in these walls, how she longed to run and run without stopping, to strip off her clothes and feel the wind and the sun caress her skin as she ran. He’d lived with the elves, like wild animals free in the forest, and he’d understand how his sister felt caged within the keep.
    For a moment she could feel him near her, see him solidly before her, his eyes wide and glad to see her, and she thought if she reached out, she could touch him, clasp that callused brown hand that would be so large beside her own—
    Ria jolted awake just in time to see everyone rising to make their goodnights. Ria quickly slid from her chair and bobbed as Lady Rivkah had taught her, her tongue stumbling over the formal pleasantries she’d tried to memorize. At last she was able