Free Blood's Pride (Shattered Kingdoms) by Evie Manieri Page A

blazed in the low light – ‘would she make a mark like that?’
    ‘Harotha is dead.’ The words felt cold and hard leaving his mouth.
    Eofar looked down at the desk. The lamplight tinged his white hair with amber.
    ‘Harotha is dead,’ he said again, blinking rapidly to ward off the sharp pain that had suddenly sprung up behind his eyes. Some unwelcome creature fluttered awake in his chest. ‘Lord Eofar, Harotha is
dead
.’
    Eofar set down the quill and looked into his eyes.
    Daryan reached out and grasped the edge of the table. When he tried to speak again, the creature in his chest crawled up into his throat and choked him, so that he barely had breath enough to whisper, ‘
Isn’t she?
’

Chapter Seven
    ‘Move over, Dramash.’
    ‘You move over.’
    ‘No – you! My mother can see me from here!’
    ‘No, she can’t, Cara. The laundry’s in the way.’
    ‘I didn’t ask
you
, Beni.’
    ‘He’s right, and she’s inside, anyway,’ said Dramash. ‘Come on, let’s go over there. We’ll see better from there.’
    Harotha pulled her dark shawl closer around her face as the three children scuttled away from the side of the house. She heard their bare feet rustle through the dry weeds and caught a glimpse of their little figures as she shrank around towards the back. A moment later she heard their voices again, just a few feet away. She was trapped; if she moved too much further around the curved wall she’d be in view of the house opposite.
    ‘I’m scared. I want to go home,’ said the little girl.
    ‘There’s nothing to be scared of,’ Dramash said kindly. Harotha smiled at his gently patronising tone; the girl was about a head taller than her little nephew. ‘Just wait. They’ll fly right over us. You’ll like it.’
    ‘You said if we stayed out until curfew we’d see something special. I’ve seen dereshadi before,’ said the other boy. He sounded older than Dramash and from his height she guessed he was eight or nine.
    ‘Not like this,’ Dramash insisted, his enthusiasm undampened. ‘When they change shifts they fly in a big triangle. It
is
special. When I’m a soldier I’ll have a dereshadi of my own. I’m going to teach it to do tricks.’
    ‘I don’t think your mother will let you do that,’ Cara said doubtfully. ‘She won’t even let you go fishing on your cousin’s boat.’
    ‘She’s scared of everything,’ said Dramash, but even though he meant it as a complaint, Harotha could hear the sadness underneath. He was right, too; Saria
was
scared of everything. ‘It’s okay – she doesn’t know it yet, but I’m going to protect her.’
    ‘Protecting her is your father’s job. Why doesn’t
he
do it?’ asked Beni. Harotha imagined a sneering, ugly face; she knew it was wrong to dislike a child, particularly one she had never even met, but she couldn’t help it.
    ‘He’s busy,’ Dramash answered stolidly.
    ‘How much longer do we have to wait?’ Cara broke in anxiously.
    ‘Until it starts getting dark, dummy,’ Beni answered. ‘Anyway, you
can’t
be a soldier,’ he said to Dramash. ‘Only Dead Ones can be soldiers.’
    ‘I’m going to be one anyway.’
    ‘Then you’ll be a traitor.’
    ‘No, I won’t. I’ll only do good things. I won’t let anyone gethurt in the mines, I’ll get more food for everyone, and I’ll punish anyone who’s bad.’
    ‘But you’d have to live in the temple with the Dead Ones,’ Cara pointed out in an awed voice. ‘Won’t you be afraid?’
    ‘I’m not afraid of the Dead Ones.’
    ‘You’re not?’ Cara asked, breathless. ‘How come?’
    There was a slight pause before he said, ‘I can’t tell you yet. It’s a secret.’
    ‘You’re just a big liar,’ said Beni. ‘You’re never going to be a solider. You’re going to go into the mines or the temple, just like everyone else.’
    ‘I’m going to be a
good
soldier,’ Dramash persisted, ‘and my father’s going to punish all of the bad ones.’
    ‘No, he