Free Shadowborn (Light & Shadow, Book 1) by Moira Katson Page A

castle, she had walled herself
into her mind, and now she was all alone.
    I forgot my pity when her face snapped into
a glare.
    “ What are you doing
here?”
    “ Your uncle the Duke
ordered me to see if you had everything you needed,” I said, hating
her once more, and hating the Duke, and hating that she could ask
me anything right now and I would be bidden to do my utmost to get
it for her. I saw that realization strike her as well, and for a
moment, as her lips curved into her mother’s smile, I wondered what
she would say. In that moment, she was all malice, exquisite and
poisonous.
    Then her eyes roamed across the crowded
interior of the carriage, she shivered in the cold, and the fight
went out of her. Her cruelty bled away into the night, and she
looked down at her hands where they were clasped in her lap.
    “ I don’t need anything,”
she said, with an attempt at her mother’s crisp tone. Instead of
sharply, it came out of her quietly; there was resignation, there
was the shadow of dignity. I blinked, unsure what to say, and she
turned a face to me that was white as snow. “Get out,” she said
more clearly. “And never again enter my presence without my express
permission.”
    I hesitated a moment, and then bowed and
left the little room. It was an empty show, not for anyone’s
benefit other than her own. Miriel would be a fool to think I could
do anything other than obey her uncle’s wishes, and it came to me
that I did not think that she was a fool. She was a little
philosopher in the making, and she had not wanted to come to
Penekket to be a pretty decoration at the court. But when forced,
she had not stamped her foot and thrown a temper tantrum; she had
locked her emotions away and now watched the world through narrowed
eyes. I had the curious thought that she seemed to be biding her
time.
    It was uncharacteristic for the child I
knew, so much the spoiled, favored child, so much the brat. I could
not understand it. I went back to the tent Roine and I shared, and
though I lay down to sleep on the hard ground, curled against
Roine’s warmth, I lay awake for a long time, staring out into the
dark.
    Just before I fell asleep,
I suddenly remembered Temar’s words to Roine, all those months
ago: Fate will pull her where it
wills. --I waited for the comfort that the
priests had always said came from knowing one’s place in life. Fate
was guiding me, I thought sleepily.
    It was not comforting in the slightest.
     
    The journey passed in a blur, strangely, one
part dazed wonder and one part growing unease. On the Duke’s
orders, I often rode close to Miriel. I was to train myself to
follow her instinctively, so that I was always at her right
shoulder, should she need me. I bit my tongue on the question of
why Miriel should ever need me. I hated the Lady with all my heart,
but had to admit that her questions had been justified. Why pluck a
serving girl out of the dirt, train her to read and write, and then
set her to be a maid for a young noblewoman on her way to the royal
court? It was ridiculous.
    And so my service was an empty gesture, with
confusion on my part and disdain on Miriel’s. I had never been a
ladies’ maid, and even if I had any knowledge of how to behave,
there was not anything for me to fetch, or anyone to whom to send a
message. There was little I could give in the way of service, and
when Miriel did want for something, she would look around herself
for her maidservant rather than ask for my help. She was unable to
countermand the Duke’s orders that I serve her, and so she did her
best to pretend that she could not see me. She took every
opportunity to demonstrate that her uncle could command my presence
at her side, but he could not forge a bond between us like he had
with Temar.
    It gave me a childish pleasure to know that
my presence annoyed her, but the journey was long, and the novelty
of my spite wore off quickly. Worse, the Duke had ordered that I
learn to ride, so that I could