Wings of Flame by Nancy Springer Read Free Book Online Page A

for Omber. She had stolen bread at the nearest village. She had gathered herbs such as she thought might help Kyrem. She had endured the mockery of the cursing demons through long nights alone with a sick and insensible prince. She had foraged for wild food for herself, snared coneys and shadow-tails, and she had boiled stolen barley meal into gruel.
    â€œYou have to eat,” she told Kyrem when he awoke.
    He ate and suffered, and in a few days the suffering grew less and he was stronger, able to sit and hold the spoon for himself. At first he nearly hated the shuntali who tended him, somehow irrationally linking her with his misfortune, his pain. But along with his strength there grew in him a sense of gratitude. This lad, this stableboy, what Seda had done for him was extraordinary. The quick rescue from fire and foes at the inn had taken courage, but this slow helping of him back to health took more; it took constancy. Not many would have seen it through. They would have left him on a doorstep perhaps, or left him worse off than that. Those were harsh times. But Seda had showed true in every way.
    The fourth evening after he awoke, Kyrem sat silently beside Seda at the fire, watching the flames and listening to the familiar noise of cursing in the night.
    â€œFolk say that the souls of the dead go up as fire, that they make their way to the sun,” Seda said.
    He glanced at her keenly and kept silence. In his experience, Seda was not one to talk for the sake of conviviality.
    â€œI never thought,” she said.
    â€œNever thought what?” Kyrem asked after the curse-filled night had waited for a while.
    â€œI never thought to tell you about the redcaps.”
    â€œYou are never likely to make a blabbermouth,” Kyrem wryly averred.
    â€œI never meant to be a curse to you,” Seda said, and Kyrem exploded into speech.
    â€œYou are nothing of the sort! How can you be a curse, you who have done nothing but good for us? You who showed us paths and brought us food and risked yourself, saved our lives, saved mine at least twice, maybe more.”
    â€œYour ill luck began when you met me,” Seda said.
    â€œOur ill luck began that night, it is true, the night of our crossing over into Vashti, and you are the only thing here that has combatted it. No, if there is a curse, I think it comes from out yonder somewhere.” He glanced away toward the darkness and the mountains and the noise of the demons. Then he reached over and lightly touched her hand. They both felt the ancient magic in that touch, the bone-deep comfort and the bond.
    â€œI am not sure I believe in curses,” Kyrem added, “but if I do, then you must be my talisman, the jewel that sends harm away from me.”

Chapter Five
    After the camp fire had burned down to embers, Seda went out a-thieving, as was her custom, and Kyrem lay in his blankets and dozed. When her thin hand shook him awake, he blinked in surprise. It was not yet morning. Darkness lay all around.
    â€œI have seen a familiar face at the hostelry,” Seda said.
    â€œWhat?” He did not understand.
    â€œOne of those who fought with you. A pinched face, small eyes like those of an animal. Weasel-face, I call him to myself.”
    Fully awake now, Kyrem threw off his blankets. “They have followed us here? But weeks have gone by. I thought we were rid of them long since!”
    â€œVashtins do not ride.” Seda had grown more talkative of late. “If they have followed us, likely they have only now caught up to us. And it is to be hoped that they do not yet know we are here.”
    â€œThose cursing demon things mark us! If they know the meaning of them. And I wager they do. Why else.…” Kyrem left the thought unfinished and rose to his feet, standing unsteadily. Urgently he felt the presence of an enemy, a relentless agent of misfortune that tracked him and pursued him, paring and paring away at his strength. “If