Melting Stones by Tamora Pierce Read Free Book Online Page B

constant. It is easier to be still and to dream, harder to move around as I do. But I wanted to know more about the green things that were growing on my sides. I wished to see the water as it shaped my flanks into something different. I needed to feel the air as it remade me. I desired to meet the creatures that came, like the birds, and you. Those were my first needs. Evumeimei, Rosethorn, I have not thought of my birth, for many spans of your time." He stopped, and looked at Mount Grace. "I do not know why this place makes me think of it. Why it makes me think of pain."
    Rosethorn came over to his window, drying her face. "Do you wish to return to the ship, or to Winding Circle? I'll make the arrangements, if you aren't comfortable here. I can find someone who will take you…"
    But Luvo was shaking his head. He sat on his haunches. "I want to know why I feel these things here. And I do not wish to leave Evumeimei. You are a teacher, Rosethorn. You know the most dangerous students are half-taught ones."
    "Well, I like that!" I put my hands on my hips. Rosethorn was laughing softly.
    "With the earth in motion, you might find yourself in a predicament," my friend the upstart piece of gravel told me. "I must look after you and keep you out of trouble."
    "That's not funny," I cried.
    Rosethorn was still laughing at me.
    "Of course it's not." She gave me a wicked, wicked grin. "Come down to breakfast dressed for riding. We have another long day."
    Azaze was up, too. "I have everything ready for you," she told us as we finished breakfast. "You've horses saddled and waiting, and a lunch packed. Jayat waits outside. Oswin will come to you later. He's work of his own to see to, first. Your Dedicate Myrrhtide says he'll be down as soon as he's finished his breakfast."
    Rosethorn pursed her lips. "He had breakfast in his room?"
    When she sounds like that, I'm really grateful if she isn't talking about me.
    "I was just as pleased." Azaze filled Rosethorn's teacup a second time. "He kept fussing at my maids. Men like that are best left locked away, where they can't meddle with folk doing honest work."
    Rosethorn choked as Azaze walked off to see to something in the kitchen. When she caught her breath, she said, "I'd say our headwoman can handle Myrrhtide."
    Hearing that Fusspot was coming had taken the edge off my excitement. "Do I have to come if Myrrhtide goes? You don't need me to look at plants or water."
    "But we need you as we go higher on the mountain, in case of rockfalls. Yes, you're coming. Just think, Evvy. You could be snug in your bed at Winding Circle right now, if you'd kept your temper with those boys."
    I
knew
she would make me go. "Would
you
have done it differently? Would you have let those boys bully my friends?"
    "That's different," Rosethorn told me. "I'm a dedicate initiate. When I pick on bullies, it's called an object lesson. And
I
know when to stop.
You
didn't."
    I hate it when she says things I can't argue with. I finished my breakfast and went to get her mage kit. I left mine in my room, even my stone alphabet. I wouldn't be able to study any magic on horseback, for certain. Myrrhtide chatters at me when I take out my alphabet stones around him. He's afraid the magic I have stored in them will get out.
    Like Azaze said, Jayat was waiting in the courtyard with the horses. I put Rosethorn's kit on her horse myself. Then I slung a little pack I carried, in case I found new rocks, in front of me on my saddle and perched Luvo on it. Luvo wanted to see everything. By the time I was ready, Rosethorn and Myrrhtide were set to ride. The sun was all the way up as we followed Jayat east, on the road through Moharrin.
    By day we could see more of the village. It was set on the inner edge of a gigantic, gently sloping bowl ringed by mountains, or at least very tall hills. Mount Grace was the queen of them, towering over the others. Lake Hobin was where the water ran at the lowest point of the bowl. There were patches of