Shadow's End (Light & Shadow) by Moira Katson Read Free Book Online Page A

when the men called Miriel the Lady of the People, or an angel, or a goddess; I shrank from such notoriety, and would have cautioned her against seeking herself, but Miriel told me seriously that such things were to be sought, and courted. She knew what it meant for a leader to be half-myth—men would give their hearts to her cause whole-heartedly, not mistrusting her motives as they might if she were only another of them. Miriel must strive to be more than human, so that the rebels would forget she was a noble herself.
    Once, we would have planned such things openly between us, secure in the privacy of our rooms, but here, we were afraid to speak of such things out loud—for once or twice, I had heard the Merchant’s sly-eyed servant listening at our door—Miriel took to writing notes on scraps of paper, burned at once when I had read them. When the man came to deliver us our dinner, we were always hard at work, myself with diagrams and lists of weaponry, and Miriel with her drafts of the treaty.
    They cannot seem to agree on anything, Miriel wrote. Jeram says that all the children of Heddred must be given an education so that they can read the teachings of the church, but he wishes the rich to give their money for this, and the Merchant will not agree. Jeram believes that the Merchant only wants to be a noble, and strives for equality because he cannot stand being lesser—and that if the Merchant could become noble, he would betray the cause.
    Is he right to think so? I wrote back, having burned her note in the fireplace and stirred the ashes about with a poker.
    Yes, Miriel wrote. But I think it can be changed—is it not true that both Jeram and the Merchant believe in the rebellion because they know they are equal to the nobles , but held back by laws? Surely a compromise can be forged.
    I only nodded. Miriel’s belief was as much a puzzle as an inspiration to me ; even in her notes to me, she never admitted that this enterprise might fail. She trusted against all odds that a fractured rebellion of men with little wealth and no power could rise up and be granted rights by their King. I could not bring myself to tell her that I believed the rebellion was too weak to survive, doomed to be obliterated as soon as the Council was not distracted by the rumble of war from the east. I could not admit that I feared, having heard no proclamations from the throne, that Wilhelm had turned away from the revolution when he had turned from Miriel. Instead, I kept my mouth shut; where in anyone else, this illogical persistence would have annoyed me, but in Miriel it seemed like something precious, a tiny flame that must be sheltered at all costs.
     

Chapter 5
     
    To my surprise, and relief, Miriel and I adapted well enough to life in Norvelt. I was reminded of the first months spent at the palace, of the strange ease with which I had slipped into a rhythm that was completely different from the familiar. We were plunged into such a strange new world that there was nothing to do save move forward on instinct alone, and both of us were too exhausted, by the end of the day, to spend our time paralyzed with fear or indecision.
    By the second month of our stay, I had stopped looking over my shoulder, freezing into the stillness of a Shadow when I saw an unfamiliar face. In Jeram’s eagerness for action, in his constant curiosity at Jacce’s identity, I began to believe that perhaps the High Priest had no spy here at all. Jeram swore that each man was known to him, and had been for years, and when I looked at these honest, straightforward country men, I did not think that the High Priest would have been able to offer them anything that could secure their loyalty to him over one of their own. If he had tried to use one as a spy, Jeram would know.
    Aron was the only one I suspected, and I continued to watch him. His smile always sent a crawling sensation up my spine; he, of all of them, seemed the sort to grasp for something beyond the