Night Spinner (Night Spinner #1) - Addie Thorley Page 0,11
risen so high, she would be happy for me. I know she would be.
“I have another surprise,” Ghoa announces. Her voice is tentative, and her fingers worry a strip of leather at her waist. “I see how miserable you are and I wish to help. In a way, I feel like a mother to you both, and—” She lets out a slow breath. “The Sky King has requested his eagles be brought to Sagaan for the Qusbegi Festival tomorrow. He wishes to participate in the hunting contests. I was going to have my warriors transport the birds, but the job is yours if you’d like it.” She looks from me to Serik, then down at the floor. “And it won’t cost you anything.”
Serik shoots to his feet and his knuckles blanch on the neck of his fiddle. I gape in equal shock, my fists pressed so hard against my legs, the silver-and-onyx feathers leave an imprint on my tunic.
“You’ll allow us to leave Ikh Zuree?” I whisper.
Ghoa smiles. The same benevolent smile she wore when she rode into my burning village on her armored warhorse, looking as fierce and as beautiful as the Lady of the Sky.
“For a day,” she confirms.
CHAPTER THREE
MY GOLDEN EAGLES—OR THE KING’S EAGLES, RATHER—are tucked into cages and strapped atop a wagon pulled by an ancient monastery mule. I would have let the birds fly overhead, swirling and looping through the icy-blue sky, but the king would be furious if they exhausted themselves and performed poorly in the hunting contests, so into the cages they went.
Orbai nibbles the bars and sidesteps impatiently.
“I’m sorry, girl. I can’t let you out today.” I scratch her feathers and offer her the mouse carcass I slipped into my pocket earlier, knowing she’d need consolation. She snatches the treat and happily crunches the tiny bones.
“I’m not even going to comment on the fact that you keep dead vermin in your robes.” Serik wrinkles his nose as he takes up the mule’s lead rope. “And I’m not going to let you stay back there with the birds. You see them every day. Come see this.” He gestures to the leagues and leagues of rolling hills beckoning beyond the whitewashed walls.
Excitement whips through me, as fierce and enlivening as the gusts of wind tugging my braid. “He’s right, you know,” I whisper to Orbai. “I’ll check on you and the others in a bit.” I give her one more scratch, then hobble to join Serik and the mule.
We rumble toward the gates, our steps growing faster and faster until we’re practically running. Flinging ourselves toward freedom.
“You’ll never make it to Sagaan if you keep up that pace.” Ghoa’s voice halts us in our tracks. She’s leaning against the open gate, and she flashes a cheery smile as she straightens. “I brought some parting gifts for the road.” She holds out paper-wrapped barley cakes, as well as a thick fur cloak, which she drapes around my shoulders. “I don’t want you getting hungry or cold.”
“What, no special cloak for me?” Serik says.
Ghoa rolls her eyes. “We all know you only wear that ratty old cloak from your mother.” She turns back to me. “Do you have your staff, En? Are you sure you can walk so far? I can call my warriors if—”
“I’m fine.” I grip my staff and stand taller. I’ll make it the two leagues to Sagaan if it kills me. I’ll fly there if I have to, I think as the little silver-and-onyx wings rattle around my wrist.
“Excellent.” Ghoa ties the cloak around my neck, but her fingers linger a moment too long on the moonstone.
I swallow hard and place my hands over hers. “I promise I won’t let you down.”
It was her idea to embed the stone in my skin. The abba was going to chain me up in a cellar beneath his dormitory—the only place he could think to keep me where I couldn’t access the night—but Ghoa came to my rescue again.
She remembered hearing of the rare Namagaan moonstones the marsh dwellers had used against Ashkar in battle two decades prior—when they first became a Protected Territory. They had flung the rocks at Kalima warriors with slings, and it had momentarily disrupted their connection with the sky. Ghoa believed implanting the stone in my skin would sever the connection entirely and keep the monster quiet.
So far, her theory has proven true. The stone is so effective, I don’t even remember the massacre. The battered wagons and smoldering corpses