Dream Storm Sea by A.E. Marling Read Free Book Online Page A

savor.”
    “I wouldn’t know. Where I come from, we don’t worry much about Feasters.” Naroh folded a purple and a red gown, leaving one of blue before Hiresha.
    “You have seen the body then? There is no question?”
    “They say they found three stains of blood. Nothing else was left at the block.” The girl unlaced the blue dress and lifted it to Hiresha.
    The enchantress waved it away. Her mind was slogging but determined. “Three bloodstains?”
    “From the two men at the Stone of the Sleepless and one woman.”
    The jewel duper, Fos, and the traitor novice. A new possibility excited Hiresha, and she squeezed the fennec more than she would have wished. He yipped awake.
    They escaped. That conniving Inannis and that fiendish Emesea must have found a way, bless them.
    Hiresha knew that a Feaster would leave a whole body. Cold, dead, but intact. Not a mere bloodstain. They don’t eat flesh.
    Feeling more composed, Hiresha said, “Kindly bring me Maid Janny.”
    Naroh glanced down at the dress she held. “Isn’t blue the color of mourning?”
    “Not in my homeland. Janny wouldn’t need to ask what color dress I want.”
    “There’s only me, Mistress Hiresha. You’re not to see anyone from your past life.”
    For the first time, Hiresha realized she was being called “mistress,” not “enchantress.” A lump scraped its way down her throat, as if she had swallowed a peach stone. The thought of never seeing her maid and friend again hurt her almost as much as the rumor of Fos’s death.
    Hiresha had also promised to tutor the maid’s daughter. The girl had used Feasting magic, and Hiresha worried what would become of the girl without her guidance.
    “Enough of that ‘mistress’ nonsense,” Hiresha said. “I’m an enchantress, no matter what it says in their precious Hall of Crystalline Records. And I wear only purple.”
    A smile was a subtle thing on Naroh’s small mouth. “Many of us don’t like what’s happened to you, to Fos. After you saved Arbiter Cosima, I wanted to be like you.”
    “An enchantress?” Hiresha threaded one arm into the purple dress. It was silk but bare of jewels.
    “Strong,” Naroh said.
    Hiresha’s fingers ran over her wounded hand. She could feel divots through the bandage where her jewels had been cut from her skin. “If you wish to help, bring me a gem.”
    Naroh’s face might as well have turned to stone. She stepped behind Hiresha and jerked the dress laces tight.
    “We might help each other,” Hiresha said. “And it might be any manner of jewel. Except opal. Or clear diamond.”
    “Arbiter Cosima has said you must have no jewels. And I will never disappoint her.”
    Naroh tidied up the dress then pulled Hiresha toward the door. Hiresha thought the girl’s grip was plenty strong enough already.
    They met the arbiter outside the Academy at the cliff’s edge. Wind gusted over a tiled lip of stone, where an enchanted road traveled straight down from the Academy. Hiresha touched her throat. Without her magical amulet, she could not travel down safely. She would plummet.
    Arbiter Cosima gave a half bow to Hiresha. The arbiter wore a dress with green diamonds that shone like droplets of lime. The woman’s face was dark and wrinkled before its time by the sun. Her eyes appeared older still. She lifted an amulet for Hiresha to take.
    Hiresha could not bring herself to hate the arbiter. Even if she played a part in this travesty. Hiresha respected how Cosima used her enchantress powers of lucid dreaming in a practical application. The heightened state of awareness aided the arbiter’s judgments. In the Lands of Loam she was known as a woman of justice.
    Returning the bow, Hiresha said, “Thank you, Cosima.”
    “Do not thank me yet.” The arbiter slipped the amulet over Hiresha’s head. Its emblem depicted a bronze and silver maze. “Spellsword Sagai.”
    The man with the tattoo garden leaned in to Hiresha. At his touch, a magic in the amulet contracted.