The Star Shard by Frederic S. Durbin Read Free Book Online

strips of cloth.
    Cymbril held her breath.
    Gerta reached down and picked up the note. Oddly, she turned the parchment over and looked at its back, frowning. Cymbril watched closely, but the girl's only reaction seemed puzzlement.
    "Someone left a box," Gerta said.
    Not someone,
Cymbril shouted in her mind.
Me! Read the note!
    "Is anyone there?" Berta called.
    Shhh,
Cymbril thought.
You'll wake the whole block.
    Stooping, Gerta lifted the box, half crushing the note against it, and carried it inside. Berta took a last look right and left, then shut the door.
    Good,
Cymbril thought.
That's that. Now I hope we're straightened out, and bygones are bygones.
Letting out a long breath, she dried her palms on her skirt and turned to go.
    Then came a bloodcurdling shriek.
    Cymbril whirled around.
    A second voice was added to the first, screaming.
    Cymbril's knees went weak, and she clutched the wall.
    On a slightly lower, hoarser pitch, rose a third voice—the girls' mother.
    Then the door flew open, and Gerta burst into the corridor in her nightgown. As she sprinted in the direction away from Cymbril, her cry broke up into words: "It talks, it talks, it talks, it talks!"
    An instant later Berta followed her sister, hands flailing around her head as if she were tearing her way through spider webs. "Ahh! It's HORRIBLE!"
    About the time more doors began swinging open and other wide-eyed heads poked into the corridor, the twins' mother lurched from the doorway, ran two steps in one direction, three in another, and then collapsed in a swoon.
    Cymbril sank against the wall, covering her face, and slid down until she was sitting on her heels, telling herself, "
Don't be alarmed," I wrote. I wrote, "Don't be alarmed.
"
    Men and women raced up and down the hallway. A bristle-bearded man with a longsword dashed in through the open door of the twins' quarters, likely suspecting thieves.
    He reemerged, screaming.

Chapter 5
Cymbril's Discovery
    Cymbril knew it would be a very long night. There was no way to avoid whatever wrath and punishment were coming. She'd signed her name to the evidence of her crime. Not waiting around for the guards to catch her—and not caring to be dragged from her bunk—she doubled back by the canal, flitted like a forlorn ghost across the Mermaid Bridge, and stole up Grandway, straight into the garrison square.
    Rombol had a high-backed chair there, its arms and feet carved into dragon claws, perched in a bed of moonthistles that could grow without light. When disputes needed settling or a criminal had to be judged, the Rake's Master occupied the chair, before the three doors of the main barracks. On a platform in one corner of the square were the stocks, a frame of heavy timbers with holes cut for a prisoner's neck, wrists, and ankles—a single set, since it was rare for any of the Rake folk to do anything deserving of the stocks. In this rolling city, everyone was registered and accounted for. No strangers drifted through. The merchants shared a common purpose like the crew of a ship, their community locked within a hull of impenetrable timbers, isolated by surroundings that constantly changed. Crime and disruptions were rare—a fact that made catastrophes like this present one all the worse.
    Cymbril gazed pensively at the stocks, thinking that she'd never been in them but that this would probably be the night. The platform's steps squeaked beneath her slippers. She touched the iron padlock, the rough boards. A cricket was fiddling in the thistles. Cymbril closed her eyes and tried to calm the nervous tremors in her stomach. Something pressed against her ankle, and she looked down to see Miwa the cat, purring and circling as if to comfort her. Stooping, she scooped up Miwa and cradled her in both arms, leaning against the stocks. "I think I've really done it this time," she whispered into the cat's ear. Miwa squinted and tilted her head back for a neck rub. Absently, Cymbril wondered how old