Palace of Stone by Shannon Hale Read Free Book Online

and hearths fat with wood and flame. Such a luxury to be awake while the sun slept, and then to ignore dawn and sleep while the world lightened.
    I’m an Aslandian now , Miri thought. I’m richer than morning.
    The girls woke slowly, stretching in their beds like cats in a patch of sunlight. It was week’s end, and Miri did not have to rush into a carriage.
    Their chaperone, Inga, shuffled in. “Wake up, girls. His Majesty the king invites you to the royal breakfast.”
    Katar sat up. “The king? When?”
    “Now,” Inga said.
    There were several gasps, and then the room was all squealing girls scrambling for dresses and stockings and shoes, rubbing water from pitchers on their faces and underarms, and elbowing for space at the mirror.
    Inga hastened them down several corridors to the threshold of the king’s wing, where guards asked the password. Inga gave it and motioned the girls forward, but no one moved. The walls, floor, and even the ceiling were made of polished linder, rich as cream. Miri could feel the stone surrounding her, a kind of silent hum, a subtle vibration that lifted the hairs on her arms.
    Gummonth, the chief official, approached, telling them to hurry along. But the girls just stared, mesmerized. Never had any of them been completely surrounded by linder, and Miri was tempted to see if quarry-speech worked differently here.
    The people of Mount Eskel used quarry-speech to communicate in the quarry, where clay earplugs and deafening mallet blows made it impossible to hear instructions or shouts of warning. Miri had discovered that quarry-speech moved through linder and communicated with memories, not words—the speaker’s memory nudging the same or similar memory in others.
    “It’s as if we’re inside Mount Eskel,” Esa was saying.
    “I miss home,” said Gerti. “I even miss sleeping beside the goats.”
    Miri quarry-spoke of the academy tutor running terrified through the village, chased by a particularly saucy nanny goat, an event Miri knew the other girls had witnessed. It was more like singing in her mind than thinking, the way she silently poured the memory into the linder. Usually only a quiver in her vision accompanied quarry-speech, but this time the memory burst into Miri’s mind so full of color and motion that for a moment she seemed to live it again.
    The girls inhaled sharply, apparently experiencing the heightened quarry-speech as well, and then they laughed. Gummonth looked around in vain for the cause of the hilarity. That made the girls laugh harder. Only people of Mount Eskel were able to use quarry-speech, though by the end of her year on the mountain, Britta had seemed to recognize faint sensations.
    Gummonth looked over them with a dead-eyed expression. “Bumpkins and peasants. I am made to bow to the children of goats.”
    The girls frowned, straightening dresses and smoothing hair. Miri had thought Gummonth a handsome, striking man, but now she noticed his sour mouth, his pinched voice. As the girls followed after him, Miri sniffed her braid just to make sure she did not smell goaty.
    They entered the royal breakfast room, where King Bjorn and Queen Sabet perched on high-backed chairs before a dining table.
    “Your Royal Majesties,” said Gummonth, “the ladies of the princess.”
    “Hm?” The king was spooning cream and raisins onto a dish of rye bread. “Yes, all right.”
    The queen barely glanced up from her tea. She had dark hair and skin as pale as parchment.
    The academy girls sat at a table opposite Britta, Steffan, and other members of the court. Britta waved at Miri and then quickly resumed a ladylike posture.
    There seemed to be enough food for a village. Miri devoured a pecan-encrusted fish, and oat porridge with several globs of honey. The king and queen did not look at the girls. They did not look at each other. No one spoke.
    Then Miri noticed the mantelpiece over the hearth.
    “Oh! Mount Eskel’s gift!” she said. “Peder, the boy who did