Shadowcry - By Jenna Burtenshaw Page 0,1

written in sharp black ink.

Those Who Wish to See the Dark,

Be Ready to Pay Your Price.

She nodded slowly, as if the book had spoken those thirteen words out loud. Whatever price was required, she would pay it gladly.

Kalen looked around warily as the woman ran her fingers along the title on the front of the book, its silver-leafed letters glinting in the moonlight.

WINTERCRAFT

“This is only the beginning,” she said.

Chapter 1

Market Day

For ten years the town of Morvane had been left alone. Its people had lived safely behind its high walls and watched as other towns around them died one by one. The country of Albion was at war, but most people had never seen an enemy come close to their gates. The only threat they knew came from within their own lands; from the High Council seated within the distant capital city of Fume and from the wardens sent to harvest the towns for anyone strong enough to fight.

There was never any warning before the wardens came. When soldiers were scarce, ordinary people were forced to take their place in battle and anyone who refused the call to fight was put to death. In five decades of war, Morvane’s citizens had been harvested twice. Children had grown up hearing stories of missing parents they would never know; people had built hiding places and dug secret paths beneath the ground to escape the wardens; and many buildings stood bare as people gradually left the town to live in the wilder villages instead, where harvesting rarely happened.

Kate Winters had been five years old when the wardens last came.That was the day when everything changed.The day her parents were taken away and she had first learned what it meant to have an enemy.

Since that day, she had grown up with her uncle, Artemis Winters, living and working in his bookshop on the edge of Morvane’s market square. Morvane was one of the last few great towns in the northern counties, almost three miles wide from wall to wall and divided into quarters by four stone arches left behind from an age long before the wardens and the war. The market square stood in the very heart of the town, but instead of trading in luxuries and curiosities alongside the usual market fare, the traders sold only what they could grow, stitch, or build themselves, concentrating on the basic items Morvane’s people needed to survive.

Books were not one of Morvane’s main priorities anymore, but since Artemis and Kate’s bookshop was the only one left in the town, there was still enough trade to justify keeping it open. Every book they had for sale was at least secondhand and every spine was cracked and worn. They repaired them whenever they could, taking tattered old books and selling them for a small profit, and the shop earned just enough silver to be able to support them comfortably, as well as paying a small wage to a third member of staff who could repair two books in the time it took Kate to fix one. The bookshop had been passed down through the Winters family for generations, and Kate hoped that one day it would be hers.

Artemis had taught Kate to be cautious and alert in case the wardens ever decided to return to Morvane, and theirs was the only shop on the market square to keep a dagger hidden beneath the counter and bolts locked on every window, even during the day. Precautions, Artemis had said, that could one day save their lives.

The rest of the townspeople had become complacent, preferring to live with the pretense of freedom rather than living in fear. They no longer checked their escape routes as often as they should, or kept horses bridled by their doors at night. Soon only the two quiet owners of the dusty old bookshop had been left with their suspicions. Morvane had begun to relax. The townspeople’s lives went on. And so, on the day the wardens finally did return, only the Winters family was ready.

Kate woke at sunrise to a soft tap on her bedroom door. She grumbled at the unwanted noise and pulled her blanket over her head.

“Kate, are you awake?”

“No.”

“Breakfast’s ready.”

“I’ll be out in a minute.”

Artemis Winters was a great believer in early mornings. Kate definitely was not. Normally, she would have tried to grab a few extra minutes of sleep before he came to wake her again, but then she remembered what day it was and forced herself to sit up.

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