A Time of Blood (Of Blood and Bone #2) - John Gwynne Page 0,70
and her footsteps faltered. She walked on, aware that people were looking at her, or more accurately, at her wings. Instinctively, she tried to furl them tighter, which of course didn’t make them disappear, and then when she realized what she was doing she purposely and slowly unfurled them, spreading them wide.
Because I am not ashamed of who I am.
She heard some gasps, whispered comments, and looked around. Some eyes looked away, discomfited, but a few stood and met her gaze. A group of children stared unashamedly at her. Riv gave a fast pulse of her wings, making them crack like a whip, and one of the children screamed. Others laughed.
Riv grinned at them and walked on.
She passed through the wide streets of Drassil, a host of different reactions happening around her. Some hurried out of her way, others stopped and gawped, some that she knew raised a hand in greeting or offered a nod.
Then she heard footsteps running up behind her and she twisted, hand on her hilt, but it was only one of the children who had been staring at her. A red-haired boy, no more than six summers. She knew him—Tam, son of a wool trader. She used to pass his stall on her way home from training in the weapons-field, and Tam would more often than not stick his tongue out and wave a stick carved as a sword at her, and she’d often get on her knees and let him swat at her in mock combat. Sometimes she’d even let him win.
“Is that really you, Riv?” the lad asked her.
She got down onto her knees. “Aye, Tam,” she said. “It is.”
“I like your wings,” he said, looking at them with wide eyes.
“I like them, too,” she said.
“Can I touch them?” he asked.
“Of course you can,” she said, and smiled.
She curled a wing tip in towards him, and he reached out tentatively, fingertips brushing a feather.
“It’s soft,” Tam breathed.
With a pulse of her wings, Riv rose from her knees and hovered a handspan off the ground, just for a few heartbeats. Tam gasped, and there were “ooohhs” around her. Riv alighted gently on the earth.
“Walk with me,” Riv said, holding her hand out to the little lad. Without hesitation he did, and together they strolled down the street.
People came and spoke to her now, walking along beside her for a while, asking her a hesitant question or two, saying they stood for her in the Great Hall. She told them she was grateful.
And then, before she had a chance to realize where her feet had taken her, she stood before the entrance to the weapons-field.
“Wow,” Tam said, who was still holding her hand. His eyes were wide.
Riv stood and stared at it a while: a huge, open expanse within the southern boundary of Drassil’s walls. Sounds drifted out to her, the clack, clack, clack of practice blades, the shout of “SHIELD WALL” followed by a reverberating thud as units of White-Wings drilled their formations, the drum of hooves further away as riders cantered and then galloped at targets, leaving spears shivering in their enemies’ straw bellies. And behind it all the whirring thrum of the archery range.
For a long, timeless moment Riv closed her eyes and just let the sounds and smells wash over her. For as long as Riv had memories, Drassil had been her home, but of all the parts that she associated with that notion of home—her barracks, the feast-hall, her dormitory—this weapons-field was the place that felt most precious to her.
Probably because I have spent more of my time here than anywhere else in all the world.
Her eyes fixed on the portion of the field that was given to archery practice, with its ranges and straw targets. She saw a few score men and women with their bows of yew and ash, people who belonged to the scouting and hunting units, but there were also others there, in woollen deels of grey and blue, heads shaved apart from long, thick warrior braids.
The Sirak and Cheren. The honour guards of Bleda and Jin.
She saw Bleda immediately, her sharp, new-found vision picking him out amongst the crowd. He was sitting upon a horse at the end of a range, arms folded, Old Ellac beside him as well as a handful more of his guards, and he was watching Jin as she stared down the range at a target over a hundred paces distant. A recurved bow was held loosely in one of her hands.