In the Ruins by Kate Elliott Read Free Book Online Page A

withered. On the path, drying petals crackled under their feet.
    “Come.” Eldest Uncle hastened forward, ignoring the dying clearing.
    “This was once so bright. What happened to all the flowers?”
    “The aether used to water this land, drawing moisture up from deep roots. Now that link is gone, and these flowers die. But the land will live. See there!”
    See there! She hurried after him along what they had once called the flower trail, to the river. Where once a trickle had moistened the rocks, a current now flowed in full spate. Laughing, she splashed into the shallows and threw herself full length into the cold water. The shock stung. Her skin hurt, everywhere, but the water was like the kiss of God. She ducked her head under, and again, and a third time, and scrubbed her hair and scalp until the worst of the filth was gone, and afterward floated until her teeth chattered and her hands were blue. At last she fetched her bow and waded to the far shore. Eldest Uncle waited for her on a carpet of grass. Fresh shoots flourished along the river as far as she could see. The land that had once lain yellow and brown had turned with the onslaught of a false spring, although she knew that winter was yet to come.
    “Ai, God!” She sat down beside him. Grass tickled her rump. Water dripped. “That felt good! I’m so tired.”
    She yawned, cradling her head on her bent knees, arms wrapped tight around her legs. The world slipped so easily away. She slid into a doze.
    Started awake, hearing voices.
    Eldest Uncle stood farther up the path, under the shade of trees, speaking with two masked warriors, one male and one female. She grabbed her bow, and recalled belatedly that she no longer had any arrows. That she needed no weapons. She
was
a weapon.
    Memory struck, because she was vulnerable. She was only half awake, unable to fend off the visions.
The soldiers burned like torches. They screamed and screamed as their flesh melted off them
…
    “Liath!”
    I burned them
. She was shaking.
    Eldest Uncle knelt beside her. He did not touch her.
    “Who are they?” she demanded, indicating the two young warriors with her glance. One wore a falcon mask and the other that of a buzzard, smooth and rufous and alert. She was shaking too hard to move. She felt sick to her stomach. “Must get up…. if Cat Mask …”
    “These are not Cat Mask’s warriors. They will not harm you.”
    Trust him, or do not trust him. “Why would you betray me?” she asked softly.
    His smile had a bitter tinge, but he was not offended. “Why, indeed?”
    She slumped forward, too weary to fight, and fell at once into a dreamless sleep.
2
    SHE dreamed.
    She walks through grass so tall she cannot see beyond it. The whisper of another creature’s passage touches her ears, and she halts
.
    Grass bends, golden tops bowing and vanishing. Something big approaches
.
    She turns as the Horse shaman pushes through and pulls up short, seeing her. “Liathano! I have been looking for you!”
    Other voices flood over them, and the grass and the centaur ripple like water stirred by a gusting wind
.
    “This one, again! If Cat Mask finds her, he’ll kill her while she sleeps.”
    “Then we must be sure that Cat Mask does not find her. Will you tell him?”
    “I will not!”
    “You spoke against her before, White Feather.”
    “So I did. But now we are fallen safely back to Earth. It may be she had a hand in our homecoming, as she promisedus. If that is the case, she does not deserve death. Although I think it best if one possessing such power does not bide long in our land.”
    Liath groaned and shook herself awake, startled to find a short mantle draped over her body. It covered her from shoulder to mid-thigh, and was woven out of a coarse brown thread. She sat up carefully, wrapping the cape around herself. She was sore everywhere. Her skin was rashy, and here and there marked with the imprint of a rock. Her neck ached, and she had a headache. Eldest Uncle