The Hidden Coronet by Catherine Fisher Read Free Book Online Page B

know about the Crow.”
    Then he saw Carys and smiled his rare grim smile. “Not forgiven me yet?”
    “Are you all right?” She lowered the bow and came down slowly.
    “We are now. And these are friends.”
    “Are you sure?”
    His smile faded and for a moment she caught that edge of strangeness that came and went in him, the darkness of the Crow. “As I can be. This is Solon.”
    He limped over and undid the blindfold gently, then took it away.
    Carys saw how the man stiffened. He had a wise, experienced face under the dirt and bruises, lit up now with a sudden deep joy. He turned slowly, staring at the hill, the gardens, the house. “Dear God,” he kept saying. “Dear God.”
    “Welcome to the lost land of Sarres,” Galen said. “Now I think we should get Marco inside.”
    But Solon’s hands shook; he clasped them tightly together. “All my life,” he breathed, “I’ve dreamed and prayed for this.”
    He looked at Raffi in a kind of daze. “Is it real?”
    Raffi grinned back wearily. “It’s real.”
    How much of a nightmare the journey had been Carys could only guess. Raffi was too tired to talk; after he’d eaten, he fell asleep at the table, with Felnia leaning up against him. The man called Marco slept too, after the Guardian had given him some cordial. But Solon seemed too excited to be able to rest. He asked for some water, and when he came back later they could see that he had washed from head to toe; the skin on his arms and face was red, as if he had scrubbed and scrubbed. He wore clean clothes Tallis had brought for him. He went out, and from the window Carys watched him as the evening darkened and Agramon rose, wandering and touching and exploring until the lawns and lanes were dim and owls and were-birds called from the woods beyond. Then Galen and Tallis went out to him, taking candles.
    They placed them on the grass and made him sit down, around the glow.
    Above the trickle of the well she heard the three keepers chant the Night prayer, the strange Maker-syllables murmured under the ring of rising moons.
    The Sekoi’s shadow loomed at her shoulder.
    “When should we tell him?” she muttered.
    The creature made a small mew of unhappiness in its throat. “Tomorrow. Let them have one night in peace.

8
    Deep in the Underworld, Flain met many evils. He knew pain and shame and bitter loss. As he walked, all their shadows clustered at his heels.
    Book of the Seven Moons

    “ I ’M THE STRANGER,” Solon said quietly. “So I feel I should speak first.”
    They sat around the table in the great wooden room. From the garden the sun streamed in, lighting the tall images of Flain and Soren and Theriss in the colored glass of the windows. One shimmer lit Solon’s hands and bony wrists, showing clearly the long, twisted scars.
    “The choice is yours,” Tallis said to him kindly. “No one expects it of you.” Her shape had changed. Now she was a young woman, her long red hair plaited. He smiled at her.
    “Yes, but I expect it. It will be a relief, in any case, to be able to speak freely after so long.” Looking around at their faces, he breathed out and said, “My friends, my full name is Solon Karner. I have been a Relic Master of the Order for over thirty years now. My master was Caradan Sheer of Tasceron. When I was very young, even before the Emperor fell, I studied with her at the Shrine of the Shells at Ranor.”
    “The shrine!” Galen looked impressed. “Were you there when it was burned?”
    Solon’s face went bleak. “I was seventeen.” He paused, fingering a bruise on his face. “I remember the columns of the Watch riding up the hill to us, the running, the panic, books being snatched up, relics hidden. But there were so many relics there, how could we save them all? The beautiful gifts the Makers had left—precious things, never to be made again in all the ages of the world! I saw the Watch sear them with torches, rip down statues and smash them. None of us could