Free The Olive Conspiracy by Shira Glassman

wanted to stay
the night and continue to the next farm south in the
morning.”
    Isaac nodded slightly. “I think I can do that.
If only the men in my head would stop kicking my skull, I could get
some rest and be normal again.”
    “ For dragon-transforming,
wisecracking definitions of normal.”
    “ Yes, Mighty One, but that’s what
you like.”
    “ I like you healthy, but I like you
alive too.” Rivka gave him a significant look, reminding him with
her eyes that she’d known for three years what it was like to live
in a world where she thought him dead.
    Isaac drank more tea. “Have the bugs reached
the next farm?”
    Rivka nodded. “Gil thinks so. They haven’t done
too much damage yet, but this morning while Gil’s wife was passing
by with her baby, she saw that there were bugs in some of the trees
on the edge of the property.”
    There was more silent eye-conversation as new
worry crept into his face. “We’ll lick this,” Rivka reassured him.
“That little girl out there will never let the country be eaten
alive.”
    “ Perach is in good
hands.”
    “ Is the tea helping?”
    “ I think so. With the nausea only
though. Not with the pain.” Isaac took a last drink, then handed
the mug back to Rivka. “Do the farmers have any other herbs they
can put in it, anything to take away the pain so I can
sleep?”
    “ I’m sure they have something. I’ll
go ask.” Rivka stood again.
    Eliana was happy to provide a mixture of leaves
selected as a pain reliever, and it wasn’t too long after Rivka
brought Isaac his second cup of tea that he was able to lay his
head back down on the pillow and drift off. Tenderly, she drew a
thin linen sheet over his body, one that would shelter him but
still keep him cool. Then, after a few minutes of watching him
breathe with the slowness of slumber, she left him in
peace.
    Outside, with stones in her hands, she
exercised her muscles. She worked out regularly, but now it was
done to flood her body with the cheering chemicals of physicality.
Rivka craved that humming in her blood. Isaac’s collapse and
unconsciousness this morning had strained her heart to the point of
snapping.
    This way she could finally see to her own
mental health while letting him have the quiet he needed to
heal.
    Some of the farmers were watching her, from a
safe distance—especially the teenaged boys. Well, that was fine—it
was good for the reputation of the famous Captain Riv, which also
indirectly enhanced the power of the throne. It also inspired the
younger ones to consider the Royal Guard in their
future.
    Rivka was happy to notice that some of the
women were watching her too. She had decided only recently to start
scouting for the Guard’s first female members, so that when she
unmasked, some day, she’d be one of many, instead of a freakish
exception proving nothing by herself. Maybe some of this farming
lot were good prospects. After all, they certainly knew how to
work.
    Also watching Rivka, from their perches on
every damaged tree, were the insects at the center of all this
drama. In a frivolous way, she wanted them to watch her working.
Let them see how easily she lifted this boulder. Let them see the
flexibility of her immense yet perfectly agile legs. If only they
could fear the power of her fists. If only they knew the
unstoppable force that Perach’s human population already
respected.
    The insects only knew how to eat and reproduce.
But there were people behind these evil deeds—people who could
definitely be taught to fear Rivka and her fists and
weapons.
    She vowed to hunt them down and bring them to
every bit of justice they deserved—for Isaac, for the olive trees,
and for Shulamit and her beautiful, generous, afflicted
country.

9. Hadar and Halleli
     
    Shulamit slept awkwardly that night. Gil and
his family did their best to put up their unexpected guests, with
offspring who usually didn’t share beds squeezing in together to
make room, and they were amply rewarded