Free The Chosen (The Compendium of Raath, Book 1) by Michael Mood Page B

same man? Had it been a dream?
    No, it hadn't been a dream. She had ached
down below for three days afterward, and she had had to clean away
blood that morning. She began to tear up, praying that the orange
light of the fire and the black of the night would mask her
crying.
    Maybe if I just jumped
into the fire right now . . .
    No. No. Have to keep
going. Have to get to the carnival. I'll find a sword and jump up
and plunge it into the side of a Graybeast. Then I'll ride the
sword back down to the ground as it tears the beast open, warmth
spilling out.
    It was really quite poetic,
actually.
    But she couldn't sleep.
    She was suspicious, and suspicion was not a
friend to sleep.
    So she stayed up and was still up when the
sun rose.
     
-5-
     
    T hey would arrive by midday and Wren had already noticed an
increase in traffic. Jon and her father would nod at other farmers
as they passed and Wren wondered if they knew them or if they were
just being polite. She had heard somewhere that all farmers knew
each other. Can't be true, can
it?
    Wren was wearing a large sunhat, green
gingham shirt, and a pair of her heavier trousers. It was warm
dress for this day, but she had specifically worn these things
because they wouldn't reveal any part of her. Her long brown hair
was the only thing spilling out from under her hat. She had even
wrapped her chest with rags to keep it from spilling out as well.
The binding was slipping though and she found herself sweating with
nerves as she tried to casually adjust it. But that was just
drawing more attention to herself. So she took to biting her nails
instead.
    There were a lot of people around now. More
people meant more safety, but in the back of her mind each person
she saw was leering at her. She tried to numb herself to it and was
almost successful.
    She remembered the first time she had felt .
. . she guessed it might have been love, she wasn't sure. It was
during one of the harvests, five or more years ago now. There was a
boy whose name she couldn't recall now. He was traveling from farm
to farm helping out for food and shelter. He had been strong, but
she could tell that he was lost. Looking for something.
    Maybe I was lost, too, and
looking for someone to reach out to.
    Her stomach had sunk every time he had
looked at her and she'd had an intense urge to kiss him, but she
wasn't sure how to go about it. She remembered how embarrassing it
had been even though nobody knew about it. Her face was red all the
time and not from the usual sunburn she carried around during
spring. She felt engorged with blood in every part of herself. Full
of red life and aching.
    The boy had left eventually, of course. He
had moved on. And he had never known.
    That was the part of herself she was trying
to kill now. The part she had to deaden. Her passion. If she
thought of herself as a passionate being then everyone became a
predator. If she thought of herself as a sack of meat – a creature
– then it wasn't as bad.
    “Look at that,” Jon said, incredulity in his
voice. He was pointing just ahead where a large red and white tent
poked up over the horizon.
    “Mm” Wren's father grunted. “You were right,
Hat. I did-” his voice broke. “I did need this, I reckon.”
    “It reminds me of our fifteenth summer,
Cole. You remember that?”
    Her father's voice dropped to almost a
whisper, barely audible over the wind. “This's where I . . . where
I proposed to Lia.”
    Jon only nodded, but Wren's jaw dropped. She
had only heard her father mention her mother's name three times
ever, and all three had been when he was drunk and touching her.
For it to come from his mouth so freely was shocking.
    Wren was not a stupid girl, but it took her
a few moments to put into perspective what was happening. Her
Graybeast release – the one she was waiting for at the carnival –
was similar to what was happening to her father right now.
Everything about his life that had been pent up over the years –
things he had