The Will of the Empress by Tamora Pierce Read Free Book Online Page B

thought, closing his eyes and clenching his teeth. Gansar, not Gyongxe. Peacetime, not war. Not here.
    When he opened his eyes, he saw the remains of trees and the bulk of stones. Only the stench of death continued to haunt his nose.
    He forced himself to study this flood, the one that was real right now. Already it was clawing at the earthen walls on the far side of the river flats. “You ask me, I think the dam broke upriver, master mimander,” he commented. “It was too old, maybe, or it needed fixing, or something, but some of those rocks look like dressed stone. It wasn’t your fault if that’s so. A dam break isn’t weather.”
    Tris, limp along her mare’s neck, nodded briefly.
    Daja was looking very sheepish, he saw. She rode over to Tris. “I’m sorry,” Briar heard her mutter. “I should have—”
    “Trusted me?” Tris’s reply was muffled, but it clearly stung Daja. “Remembered it’s my favorite thing in all the world to act like a crazy person before strangers, and it would have been nice if my sisters and brother had said, ‘Oh, she’s peculiar, but she’s usually peculiar for a reason’? Go away, Daja. I don’t feel like blushing and accepting your kind apology just now, thanks all the same.”
    Daja drew herself up. “All that traveling and all those conferences, and they never taught you how to be gracious.”
    “You want Sandry for that. She’s up ahead. Leave me be.”
    Briar rode over and touched Daja on the arm. He jerked his head, a sign for her to come aside with him. When shedid, he whispered, “Remember? She gets all worked up, and she snaps at the first nice voice she hears. She was probably scared witless. I’ll put on the heavy gloves and gentle her some.” He winked and rode back to Tris, getting her attention by poking her in the arm. “Hey, Coppercurls, nice fireworks,” he said, keeping his voice light. She looked like one of the warrior dedicates right after battle: exhausted, but still not quite sure it was safe to stop fighting. Briar had learned to handle them carefully when they were in that state. “Maybe you ought to do like Chime and eat something so the lighting will come out of you in colors.”
    Tris replied with a suggestion that Briar knew would be physically impossible. He grinned. Offering Tris his canteen, he said, “Have some water, and don’t spit it back in my face.”
    As Tris obeyed, Briar looked at Daja and shrugged.
    Daja smiled reluctantly. That’s right, Daja thought. Tris gets really frightened, and then she bites the heads off of people. I had forgotten.
    I wonder what else I’ve forgotten—about Tris. About Sandry, and Briar.
    I hope I remember really, really fast.
    Sandry was livid. Had she been less aware of what she owed to the people around her, she would have shaken Tris until her teeth rattled. Furious as she was, she still remembered one of her uncle’s most often-repeated lessons: “Never express anger with a friend or a subordinate in public,”Vedris always said. “They might forgive a private expression of anger or a deserved scolding, but they never forget a public humiliation. It is the surest way to destroy a friendship and to create enemies.”
    The caravan found a wide cove off the road where they could halt to collect themselves and calm the children and the animals. Sandry then went to give Tris a piece of her mind. The mimander beat her there. He had backed Tris up against a tall stone by the road, his yellow-robed body shielding her from onlookers. Sandry moved to the side of the stone to eavesdrop.
    “The world does not appreciate such stunts,” the man told Tris softly but fiercely. “Do you know the harm you could do with such dangerous magic? What if a wagon had rolled, or if animals had fallen? When you scry a thing, you announce it immediately—you do not stage a panic in mid-river! I mean to file a complaint with Winding Circle—”
    “They will tell you your complaint has no merit.” Tris’s