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

won’t. Your father’s no good for anything. He’s a cripple.’
    Harotha’s jaw clenched and she felt that familiar sick cramp in the pit of her stomach. She had to remind herself that she was a grown woman, not a child; she was too old to knock Beni down in the dirt for saying nasty things about her brother.
    ‘I’m going home,’ Cara announced. ‘I don’t want to get in trouble. Okay, Dramash? What are you—? Ow! Something fell on me!’
    The other boy made a similar noise and Harotha heard them both scrabbling in the dirt. ‘Look, those stones came from right up there. Stupid Mitharia should fix her wall. I’m bleeding! This is stupid. I’m going home.’
    ‘Me, too,’ Cara agreed hurriedly.
    ‘Don’t go,’ Dramash pleaded, ‘you don’t have to be scared. It’ll be fun—’
    ‘
Cara!
’ A shrill voice rang out from somewhere across the street and Harotha jumped. She didn’t know the voice but she knew the tone right enough; every child who had ever stayed out too late or gone where they weren’t supposed to go knew it well. She also knew that such a shout was likely to draw the head of every other mother within earshot out of the street’s curtained doorways. No one could see her where she was standing but she drew her scarf closer anyway.
    ‘
Coming!
’ The girl bade her friends a hasty goodbye, then Harotha heard her running furiously across the street. Beni wasn’t far behind, and to her relief, Dramash pushed through the drying laundry and circled around towards the front of the house.
    She sagged back against the wall. Nothing to do now but wait for Saria to come back out as she’d promised. The light was beginning to fade and the dry weeds pricked at her legs and made her swollen ankles itch. When she and Faroth had been children, this little scrap of land had been a tidy garden fussed over by their indifferent guardian, an unattractive, unmarried older cousin. The cousin and the garden were long gone, but she still felt like she was trespassing just by standing there. From time to time she could hear the put-upon strains of Saria’s voice through the whitewashed clay as she gave Dramash his supper.
    She didn’t know what to make of her nephew’s bizarre ambitions. Saria loved to talk about her son when she came to bring Harotha food and water, but she had never so much as hinted at anything of this kind. That wasn’t surprising, though; Saria was far too concerned with other people’s opinions to ever sayanything that might reflect badly on her family. Dramash couldn’t be the only little boy to covet the dereshadi, but it troubled her that he aspired to be one of the soldiers who oppressed and brutalised his people. What had Faroth been telling the boy? Whatever it was, the message had become badly muddled.
    ‘So you are still here,’ Saria whispered, rounding the wall of the house. ‘Anyone else would have had the sense to go back, but not you.’
    ‘What took you so long?’
    ‘I told you, I have to have supper ready for Faroth when he gets home or he’ll ask too many questions. But I don’t know why you bothered waiting at all. You came all of this way for nothing – I’m not going to change my mind.’
    Harotha adjusted her shawl, took a deep breath and tried again. ‘Saria,’ she said, ‘I know you think something terrible will happen, but I have to talk to Faroth. Tonight. He’s making a serious mistake.’
    ‘Absolutely not,’ Saria said stubbornly.
    ‘He’s still my brother,’ Harotha reminded her.
    ‘Yes, he is – and he thinks you’re dead. He
mourned
you. I don’t think you have any idea what losing you did to him. The gods help me, why do I have to explain this to you over and over again? Why did you come here when every time you asked me I told you to keep away?’
    ‘I should have seen Faroth as soon as I came back. I know you meant well, but hiding was a mistake. I’ve been doing nothing, sitting out there alone for the last five months,