Free Wild Blood (Book 7) by Anne Logston Page A

tell he was proud of her cleverness.
    She and Cyril, however, found some common ground in a new pastime—hunting. Both had been taught the bow, but there had been little game in the settled lands near Emaril’s keep, and they were not allowed to join the occasional hunting parties that ranged far from the keep. Now, however, there was an endless variety of game of all sizes available, and Ria and Cyril were permitted to ride with the guards to hunt the evening’s meat.
    Ria found her first hunt an unforgettable experience. She’d never killed so much as a mouse in her life and wondered whether she’d be able to do it at all; the first time the guards surprised a small herd of plains deer, however, a sort of hungry joy filled her, and her arrow flew to its mark before she knew she’d shot it. She’d felt a brief pang of regret when she’d seen her kill lying before her—it was such a beautiful creature, so graceful and harmless in life—but the smell of its blood woke that strange hungry joy again. When she cut her arrow free, she’d been unable to resist the impulse to raise a small strip of the bloody raw flesh to her lips, and the taste had made her tremble. She’d quickly cleaned her knife and her arrow and turned away when Cyril arrived, knowing he’d never understand the fierce excitement Ria was certain must show on her face. Somehow she knew that whatever pleasure Cyril got out of hunting, it wasn’t the same.
    Hunting, however, quickly became a competitive game. Ria could not match the range of Cyril’s longer bow, but Cyril admitted that he could not best Ria’s deadly accuracy, nor her keen vision, which could spot the plains deer almost invisible in a thicket. Lady Rivkah abashedly admitted that she’d never mastered the bow, but she and Lord Sharl sometimes joined the hunt simply for the joy of riding and relief from the jolting wagon seats.
    Ria did not mind the roughness of their night camps. It was exciting to sleep in the open, a treat to wake to wind and birdsong instead of the clatter of pots from the kitchen. It tickled her pride to know that when they sat down to eat in the evening, she’d been the one to supply some of the meat and fresh vegetables they ate. When it rained, Lady Rivkah or one of the other mages cast a spell to keep water off them, and Ria was almost disappointed at how comfortable their camps were. It was delightful, too, to have no tiresome lessons, although Cyril had taken to hunkering over maps and scrolls with Lord Sharl and Lady Rivkah in the evenings, talking about crops and shipping and other equally dull subjects. Ria, meanwhile, was happy to spend her evenings avoiding her foster parents and Cyril altogether, sitting unobtrusively in the shadows near the servants and guards’ fires and listening to the gossip, learning all the bawdy and “unsuitable” songs that Lady Rivkah had always tried to keep her from hearing.
    The trade road itself was a source of occasional interest. This far south of Cielman it was hardly even a road, by Ria’s observation, just a dusty and well-rutted dirt track, but Cyril told her it was one of the most heavily traveled trade routes between the north and the southern cities this far west. It ran near to Allanmere, very near, which was how Lord Sharl had taken the idea to build a trade city in that particular spot.
    Sometimes they passed riders on the trade roads, messengers carrying their tidings north or pilgrims journeying to northern temples. Once they met a merchant caravan—it would stop in Cielman, in fact, as part of its trade route—and although it was only late afternoon, the merchants and Lord Sharl agreed to make camp for the night. That was a jolly night; Lord Sharl and Lady Rivkah and Cyril sat up most of the night talking with the merchants, discussing trade routes and the possibility of including Allanmere as a new stop between north and south, but Ria befriended some of the children in the merchant caravan and