Shadowfell by Juliet Marillier Read Free Book Online Page A

might bite first. ‘Give this lass time and we’ll know one way or the other.’
    Sage folded her arms, her head on one side as if she was thinking hard. ‘It wouldn’t want to be too much time,’ she said. ‘Whether she’s what I think she is or not, her gift puts her in danger. Let her fall into the hands of king’s men and we might lose our only chance.’
    ‘This is utter nonsense! I can’t believe so many of you have let yourselves be caught up in such foolishness.’ Silver spoke with sharp authority. ‘You’re meddling in matters that lie far beyond your understanding. Ancient things. Weighty things.’ A pause. ‘Perilous things.’
    ‘Aye,’ put in the big-eyed being, ‘you’d stir up what’s best left sleeping and bring down disaster on all of us.’
    ‘When has our kind ever joined with their kind in a venture that did not end in catastrophe?’ asked Silver. Clearly no answer was expected, but the bushy creature, Sorrel, spoke up.
    ‘In the war between the Sea Folk and the brollachans,’ he said smoothly, as if he had only been waiting for the opportunity to provide this information. ‘A human fellow. A Caller. But for his leadership, the brollachans would have been wiped out in the north, and the human folk of the isles along with them. It’s in the long songs. Even you cannot argue with those, Silver.’
    ‘A story. That’s all it is, an old tale. Those times are gone. To do this would go against everything we are; it feels wrong, it smells wrong, it’s as wrong as an eaglet in a dove’s nest. Human folk got Alban into this sorry state. Let human folk get it out again. It’s not our fight, it’s not our quest, it’s not our business.’
    ‘Alban is our home,’ Sorrel said. ‘Since time before time; since long before humankind set foot on this shore.’
    ‘What will you do when the storm comes?’ put in Sage, her eyes fixed on Silver. ‘Defend your home or lie down and let it fall to pieces around you?’
    The answer to this, I did not hear, or if I did, it was gone when I awoke. But everything about the dream seemed real: the harsh urgency of the Good Folk’s whispered interchanges, the cryptic references to me and my journey, the dark blanket of the night and the cries of owls in the trees above. I wondered if it had been no dream at all. Perhaps, thinking me asleep, they had decided to debate my worth or my future or whatever it was, and I had been just sufficiently awake to hear them. One out of seven. Seven of what?
    Next morning, when I rolled out of the warmth of the cloak, I found that my footwear had been repaired, the torn uppers cobbled together with tiny fine stitches and the linings replaced with a flexible substance like tightly packed cobweb. When I slipped the shoes on, they were no longer too small but fitted me perfectly.
    I knew it was perilous to accept fey gifts. The king’s wrath fell swiftly on anyone found to be in possession of such an item. A wooden spoon that happened to have a magic symbol carved on the handle, or a piece of weaving that was a little too expert, could see a house burned to the ground with the occupants still inside. No matter if the spoon had been carved by someone’s old grandfather, or the weaver simply happened to be clever with her hands. Under this king, suspicion was as good as proven fact. And Keldec’s will was absolute.
    I wondered, often, what kind of man it would take to carry out an Enforcer’s duties. Did the king use fear to keep them obedient? Did he offer rewards they could not refuse? It seemed to me it would be better to die standing up to a tyrant than to survive as a tool of his will. If I ever had to face the Enforcers, I hoped I would be as brave as Grandmother had been.
    ‘Many trials lie before you,’ I muttered to myself. ‘You will be tested to your limit.’ True, maybe; but as a piece of advice, not especially helpful. As for the shoes, clearly mended by no human hand, I must wear them. With autumn