Silver Eve by Sandra Waugh Read Free Book Online Page B

before going on, until three little herb piles burned white-hot and then fizzled. As soon as the flames died, I swept the piles into the center so the smoking ash mingled. Then I tipped the goat’s milk over my scalding hands—all but the last bit, which I drank, taking care not to swallow any yew.
    Finished. The cup placed outside the circle. Fingers laced in lap. I breathed—in, out, in….The exhale was so very loud. Another breath, and another, and then I could not stand the silence. Had I done well? Would I have to wait? How long? A plea was already forming—
    Then only half uttered. The poisoned milk seared my belly, raced fire through my veins. I wrapped my arms around my stomach, gagging against the burn, and maybe I tipped to one side, to stop the world from spinning, but none of that was important….
    —
    I was flying, the earth racing far beneath. There was the marsh, then solid ground, a canopy of trees, and a lake hemmed by rock and fed by countless waterfalls all thundering down the face of a cliff. ’Twas a bird’s flight, this. I recognized the flash of wing—
my wing
—from the corner of my eye, the black feather above white. The bird I’d rescued was the form I’d taken in this spell; burned wing and all, I was flying. In a heart-stopping breath, I skimmed the cliff of waterfalls, turned to sweep far out into the center of the lake, and then shot straight toward one furious torrent.
    No easing of speed, no gasp for air. I burst through the fall and landed in a hollow behind the sheet of water, into blurred sight and deadened sound. There was a ledge of some sort, a faint shimmer of light. Red, slime-slicked rocks before it…
    It lay there, the answer to my first question: a whelk’s shell—pinkish gray on the outside, pearlescent within. I’d seen pictures of them in Dame Gringer’s books. This one was no different, small and ordinary, discarded on the damp shelf. And yet a feeling stabbed through me with sudden force—that this insignificant object wanted rescue from the cold and dripping walls, that I should scoop it up and carry it home. But even as I moved closer, a protest began—a faint rumbling of sound, which grew into shadow form, bellowing huge and black and utterly horrifying. A stench burst out from it in revolting waves, swallowing all the senses, and I rolled to avoid it and fell straight into cold blackness before another spiral of flight began….
    I spun upward out of water. Slick stone became hard-hewn rock—a warm gray splattered with onyx and mica—rock that was cut, stacked, designed. My gaze traveled up, up, following battlements and turrets and banners all spilling precipitously above an enormous canyon. A castle, carved from the very stone it was so precariously built upon. It stood majestic, strong, and wholly stunning. The sky was a luminous backdrop, the sun slanted finely etched shadows in curves and corners. I soared straight up the east bulwark, and then made a dizzying fall between its tallest turrets. The dive sent my stomach into my throat. I shut my eyes, then blinked wide, for I was crossing a small bit of green—an interior courtyard bursting with white blossoms. I spied the blue of a stone-rimmed pond, and then went racing up and out, over the west turrets to a broad scape of grass.
    Two horses stood stark against the lush green—dappled gray and brilliant white—with two riders who’d paused midride to share an embrace. I remembered those horses, remembered their startling visit to Merith. And I knew their riders: my cousin, Lark, and the Rider Gharain.
    I swept right over their heads and flew on, no voice, no hand, nor anything to call to my cousin. I’d only a glimpse to barely think silly things: How was she riding a horse? What were those leggings she wore? Where was her moss-green frock? And then to understand: this castle, this canyon—this was Tarnec. It meant Lark had left Merith, as I had. She’d found a new home. She was with her