Forest Born by Shannon Hale Read Free Book Online Page A

called you, Finn) ‘that moon-eyed young man of yours won’t get his wedding and he’ll come blame me. But I’ll tell him sure as I’m telling you how can I make a dress without the fabric? I ask you, how?’ And on and on she goes as if I had all day to listen. I tell you, some people don’t know when to just snap it shut.”
    Enna looked over her shoulder at Finn as if for his opinion, and he smiled at her, and they smiled at each other in silence for so long that when Enna looked back to Rin again, she had a dazed expression as if she’d just woken up.
    “What was I saying?” asked Enna.
    “Snap it shut,” said Rin.
    Enna’s eyes widened.
    “Oh!” Rin laughed, her face burning. How easy it was to say such things around Enna. She needed to be more careful. “I meant . . . not you, I meant that was the last thing you said.”
    “Oh. Right. You have a good memory. Well, I need Isi’s opinion, of course. What do I know about fabric for gowns and weddings in palaces and such? I’m still not sure this big hullabaloo in the city is the best idea anyway.”
    Finn’s smile deepened. Apparently he knew, as Rin suspected, that Enna did indeed prefer a big city hullabaloo of a wedding to a quiet Forest party.
    Razo popped his head around the door and exhaled when he took stock of the room’s occupants.
    “Here you are. I went looking for you two down in the thread-mistress’s chamber, and when I asked her where you were . . .” Razo blew out his cheeks.
    “Say no more,” said Enna.
    “Sure enough, that woman had enough to say for all of us. Hello, Rinna-girl.” Razo knocked her with his shoulder. “I never get used to you in these prettified clothes.”
    Rin smoothed the blue light wool tunic over her skirt, feeling the prick of sweat on her skin underneath. She’d sneaked out earlier in her old Forest clothes to run off the raw panic that was creeping over her again, and had thrown on the fine clothes only moments before Enna arrived.
    Razo poked at her skirt with one finger, as if it were an animal only feigning death. “Almost want to call you some other name . . . I’ll have to think on that. Rinna-lady, maybe? Naw, you don’t have the lady look.”
    “Razo . . . ,” Enna said, scolding in her voice.
    Rin tried to echo Enna’s chastising stare.
    “What? It was a compliment! Rin doesn’t want to look like a lady, do you? Can’t climb a tree in a fancy skirt. And I can’t imagine you at home in any place where there aren’t a thousand trees to climb at a moment’s notice.”
    It was an innocent comment, but he’d unknowingly struck her right in her pain. Rin felt a frown dig into her forehead before she turned and pretended busyness with Tusken.
    “Rin,” Enna said, her voice concerned, “now what’s—”
    Before Enna could finish, Isi swept in, picking Tusken off the floor and sitting with him beside Enna.
    “What a morning,” she said, kissing her son’s cheek. “I’m glad you’re here, Enna. Great crows, but what a morning. Hello, Rin, thanks for watching my boy. Was he good?”
    “Always,” Rin said.
    “Always,” Isi repeated. She buried her face into his neck, making eating noises, while the little boy laughed his rough, gravelly laugh. Isi was still smiling at Tusken when she said, “Bad news from the east.”
    “Ugh.” Enna covered her head with a bolt of yellow silk.
    “I know, I’m sorry, Enna, Finn. It does look as if the wedding will have to be postponed. But hopefully just for a week. Finn, Geric needs you.”
    Finn had been sitting on the edge of a table by Enna, one hand on her knee, but now he stood, half-turned to the door, ready to go at command. “What’s happening?”
    “Oh, probably nothing serious,” said Isi. “But after Tira and the war and everything, the ministers clamor to respond quickly to any hostility. A village near our border with Kel was attacked. It could be bandits—though I thought we’d rooted out all the serious banditry that