Darkthaw by Kate A. Boorman Read Free Book Online Page B

far beyond the first spruce, back in a crevasse of the mountain. Warm water springs from the rock into deep pools.”
    â€œWarm water from the rock?” I ask.
    She nods.
    â€œAnd who is
we
?” I raise my eyebrows.
    She laughs. “Not me and someone special. I meant
us
.” She gestures between her and me. “My friends. We go to be by ourselves.”
    Matisa told me many things about her home over thewinterkill. She described valleys teeming with animals, warm winds, a glistening lake, groves of tall trees. Surrounding that, huge walls of rocks, capped with snow, dotted with spruce. Some of those things I feel I know from my dreams. Some of them are things I can only imagine.
    â€œI’d like to see that.”
    â€œYou will.” She smiles at me.
    I return the smile. Being around Matisa makes me feel like I’m brushing up against the life I was always meant for. She makes me feel at ease and bold at once, like I can learn those things she knows. Like I can decide things for myself.
    â€œEm!” Nico calls from atop Isi’s horse. “Watch!” He has something clenched between his thumb and fingers—a leaf or some such—and as he snaps his fingers it leaps into the air, swirling up on an invisible breeze. It drifts, spinning, toward me—a seedpod from an ash tree. He beams. “Isi taught us!” It’s the first full smile I’ve seen on his face since we left the settlement.
    Daniel tries to do the same, but he can’t snap, so the seedpod falls limp from his fingers. He furrows his brow and pulls another one from a low-hanging branch.
    My eyes linger on Isi. Unlike Matisa’s easy wisdom, Isi carries himself with a knowing that unsettles me. He’s mayhap a bit haughty, and full of pride, which is something I’ve never felt and don’t full understand.
    I know, though, that underneath his stony surface is a softness. I’ve seen it when he speaks with Kane’s brothers, when he’s helping them do something they can’t do themselves. I saw it over the winterkill with Tom’s little sisterEdith. Isi would sit in the common room and spin stories from nothing. Matisa told me he’s like that with the young ones at their home, too.
    â€œTeach them something useful next time!” Matisa calls to Isi.
    Isi waves her off, the ghost of a smile on his lips. Nico snaps one pod after another. Daniel fails again, but his face only becomes more determined.
    â€œHe stopped their bickering,” I point out.
    â€œI am teasing him because he is teasing me,” Matisa says. “I have been dreaming about a tree seed and Isi. In my dream, he follows it in a big wind, even though the places it goes are very dangerous. I’ve told him about it.”
    â€œAnd now he’s playing with seedpods to show you they aren’t so scary?”
    â€œProbably,” she says, a soft smile on her face.
    I’ve only ever seen that smile when she’s looking on Isi.
    As we crest a hill, Kane has the spyglass to his eye. “Isi says there are people up ahead.”
    Isi slaps his horse’s neck. The beast’s ears are pricked forward, and he nickers, his neck stretched out in the direction Kane is looking.
    â€œCan’t see much. A ramshackle camp of sorts. But there’s smoke, signs of living,” Kane says.
    We look at each other.
    â€œEverything looks weatherworn—they have been there some time,” Isi adds.
    Some time
. A flicker of familiar curiosity lights in my chest. Feels like when I used to look out at the woods fromthe Watch flats. When I finally got out into those trees and couldn’t help but go farther still.
    â€œFirst Peoples?” Sister Violet asks.
    Isi shrugs.
    â€œDo you think it’s safe?” I ask Matisa.
    â€œWe could skirt to the south,” she says. “But we would need to backtrack several hours.”
    We look around—the forest is climbing and