Blackveil by Kristen Britain Read Free Book Online Page A

together.
    Karigan sat on her father’s bed, trying to imagine her mother wearing the dress, meeting her father at the altar of Aeryc, reciting their devotions before the moon priest and witnesses.
    She sighed and pressed her face into the silk, perhaps trying to feel some essence of her mother in it, but only inhaling the scent of cedar clinging to a garment left long in storage.
    She curled upon the bed with the gown, and finally, exhausted, she dropped into sleep.
     
    Karigan awoke to daylight filling the room. For a moment she forgot where she was and sat up shaking her head. She pushed aside her blanket. No, it was her mother’s gown. Then it came back to her—she was in her father’s room. She rubbed sleep from her eyes.
    “Well,” Aunt Stace said in an acerbic tone from beside the fireplace, startling Karigan. She held a poker, and was hale and quite wide awake. “Good morning to you. It is the tenth hour of the day.”
    “Doesn’t feel like it,” Karigan mumbled.
    “I imagine not. It seems both you and your father kept late hours.”
    “Where is he?” Karigan asked, wondering why he’d not evicted her from his room.
    “Out and about on his snowshoes. He came in briefly at eight hour for tea and a muffin, then headed straight back out.” Aunt Stace shook her head in bemusement. “Said he was out checking the grounds and roads.”
    Karigan raised her eyebrows in incredulity. “Why?”
    Aunt Stace rolled her eyes. “If I knew that one, Kari girl, I’d tell you. You know how he gets when he’s some notion in his head—whatever it is.”
    Karigan nodded. She did know. Nothing would stop him no matter what obstacles lay in his path—not even a snowstorm. She glanced at the window as if to catch a glimpse of him tramping around on his snowshoes, but saw only frost coating the glass.
    Probably checking if the roads are passable so he can be rid of me .
    Aunt Stace set the poker aside and came to Karigan, smoothing her skirts as she sat on the bed. “What brought this on?” she asked quietly, touching the gown. “Something your father said?”
    “No. I ... I don’t know. But Mother—I miss her. I hardly remember her.” Then, out of nowhere, tears came and Aunt Stace wrapped her arms around her, holding her close. She smelled of soap and cinnamon.
    “I know, dear, I know.” Aunt Stace rubbed her back. “You do realize she loved you very much, don’t you?”
    Karigan sniffed and nodded.
    “Good. That’s the most important thing.”
    “I remember she liked to sing to me.”
    “Yes, she did, and she sang sweetly.”
    “One thing I didn’t inherit from her,” Karigan said, and she laughed.
    “But you’ve her eyes, her hair, and many of her lovely attributes,” Aunt Stace said. “Never forget she lives on in you.”
    Karigan almost started sobbing again, but swallowed it back, and wiped her nose with her sleeve.
    “I think,” Aunt Stace said, “a hearty breakfast would make you feel much better.”
    Karigan nodded. She was hungry.
    “Good. Then let me help you fold this.” Aunt Stace smoothed a sleeve of the gown. “Your mother was so beautiful in this. Absolutely radiant. Your father on the other hand ...” Aunt Stace chuckled, and it grew into a hearty laugh.
    Karigan’s aunts had told the story of her father’s wedding enough times that all one of them had to do was say the word wedding and they’d all break out in helpless laughter. Except her father who would usually groan and leave the room.
    “He—he turned white as the belly of a rayfish when he saw Kariny.” All of Aunt Stace jiggled. “He was so nervous!”
    It was amusing, Karigan thought, to imagine her father sprawled in the moon priest’s arms while the lord-mayor of Corsa and all the elite of the merchants guild looked on. She couldn’t help but join in with Aunt Stace’s laughter.
    When they’d mostly recovered, they lifted the gown to fold it, and something solid tumbled from it and plopped onto the