Wren (The Romany Epistles) by Rachel Rossano Read Free Book Online

heard her. “If you keep it up, you are going to make her
uncomfortable.”
    I smiled down at my sister. Her fair hair curled around her
face, drawing my attention to her features, delicate and lovely, just like our
mother’s. “I was just wondering where she came from.”
    “Well you should wonder that while eating your food. It is
getting cold.” She patted my knee in a motherly fashion. “I don’t want you
getting sick. The farmers need our help. Besides, Svhen says she works fast in
the fields. You don’t want to drive her away when we need her most.”
    I glanced over at Svhen in surprise. Even unapproachable,
unflappable Svhen fell under Wren’s spell. If I didn’t figure out something
quickly, I might lose any authority I had over the woman. At least Arthus was
untouched. For the moment.
     
     
Wren
    After dinner, Kat and I left the current makeshift quarters
in search of clothing for me. I was surprised when Kat, lantern held aloft, led
me in the direction of the ruined keep.
    “I thought it was useless,” I commented.
    Kat shrugged. “It is ruined as a place to live. However, it
is a good place to store things that we don’t need or use often. I keep all my
extra clothing here. Dardon has a chest full of things he brought back from the
wars. Arthus stores a crate or two of books. He does not have time to read
except in the winter months. With the first snows he brings the crates into the
living quarters and reads out loud to us on the days we are all trapped
inside.”
    Memories of Taerith’s low soothing voice filling my ears was
enough to make tears press against my eyes. With the sensations of Aquila’s
thin, small form pressed against my side and the steady rasp of Zoe’s fretful
pacing across the rushes on the floor, I was suddenly remembering the winter
that Aiden and Arnan were missing for three days during a winter storm. The
younger ones’ fear, sharp and keen, filled the air for those three days. Even
Taerith’s outer calm wore thin.
    “Here they are,” Kat announced, pulling my thoughts
forcefully back to the present. She perched the lantern on the top of a stack
of boxes so that she could wrestle open the top of a crate at their base. I
stepped forward to assist her, but I was too late, the lid creaked open. “Just
like I thought,” she said, beckoning me to look with her. “There are plenty
here. Surely we can find one that will fit you.”
    I quickly found myself disagreeing with her. The lavish
fabrics of the dresses she pulled from the trunk made my breath catch. The
reality of how far she and Tourth had fallen in their circumstances caught me
anew. Silk, fine wool, muslin, and lace slid from the contents with sighs of
delicacy. I was hesitant to touch the cloth for fear that the calluses on my
hands and the dirt beneath my nails would accidentally mar their beauty. None
of us girls growing up even dreamed that such luxury existed or that we should
even desire it. I tried to envision my sisters in the gauzy lace-bedecked dress
that Kat now held up to my shoulders.
    “You are a bit shorter than me,” Kat observed. “That is an
easy thing to fix though.” She draped the dress over the pile on a nearby
crate. “I can always hem it for you.”
    “I am supposed to be working in the fields,” I reminded her,
eyeing the rejects skeptically.
    “There should be more casual ones at the bottom. I just like
to take these out sometimes and remember the past.” She paused. “So much has
happened since then.”
    “How long has it been since…?” I let my voice fade away when
I saw the grief in her clear blue eyes.
    “Two years.” She brushed a hand over the gray wool dress coat
and looked up at the ruined skeleton of the floor that had once hung above us.
“Mother and Father never even felt the pain. One moment asleep here, the next
with Deus in heaven, they never felt the heat of the flames or the fear of
watching them consume our life. In some ways Deus was gracious.” She