Epoca: The Tree of Ecrof - Ivy Claire Epoca

Скачать книгу

fingers tingled, her legs twitched, her heart raced, and her lungs filled with delicious air. She felt invincible. Of course she could catch Davos. That was nothing. She could do that and a whole lot more.

      Then it happened again. She was standing by the trees at the edge of the Royal Woods as she saw herself take off and sprint in Davos’s direction. This second self was a blur, an arrow flying at an extraordinary pace, speeding toward Davos.

      Davos hesitated and Pretia watched herself—watched herself—race toward him at an amazingly fast pace, faster than she could even imagine running. She watched herself tag him, but not simply tag him. She tagged him with such force that she pushed him toward the edge of the cliff. From where she was standing at the edge of the woods, she watched Davos stumble and watched herself stumbling after him, almost tackling him. “You’re It,” she heard herself shout. But it was too late. Pretia watched herself watch Davos fall over the cliff and disappear from sight.

      A cry from all the kids at once brought Pretia back to herself. She was no longer standing by the trees, but at the edge of the cliff, back in her own body.

      What had she done? What had just happened? Where was Davos? Had she killed him? Had her grana killed him? What was she capable of?

      Holding her breath, not wanting to look but knowing she absolutely had to, she crept to the edge and looked down, expecting to see a sheer drop to the sea below. Instead, what she saw was a more gradual hill with a ledge on which Davos was lying, moaning and clutching his left arm. “It’s broken,” he cried.

      The kids all peered over Pretia’s shoulder as she knelt down to help Davos up. But before she could, Dinara elbowed her out of the way. “We’ll help him,” she said.

      Suddenly all the kids had crowded in front of Pretia.

      “It—It was an accident,” she stammered. “It was.” Because of course it was—she hadn’t meant to tag Davos so hard. She hadn’t meant to push him off the cliff. But she had. She had stood back and watched as she had done it. Her grana had made her do it. Her grana was uncontrollable.

      Pretia stepped back from the group and the kids closed ranks, leaving her out. She watched them lift Davos back up to the clearing. Dinara flung his good arm over her shoulder as she prepared to help him walk back to the castle.

      Pretia wanted to tell them she’d make sure he got the best medical care. She wanted to tell them that she would make sure he got everything he needed to help him heal—the royal treatment. But she didn’t dare speak. She was too horrified by what she had done.

      She raced back to the castle. For once, what she wanted more than anything was to be alone. She sprinted up the steps, where she imagined her ancestors were staring at her in horror, through the Atrium and up into the Hall of the Gods. Most of the flames had died out. Only those in front of Cora, Somni, and Hurell still burned. Hurell. Pretia skidded to a stop. Her stomach flipped. Her heart felt like a cold stone. Had Hurell granted her wish? Had the Fallen God granted her grana?

      She could feel the panic starting to rise in her throat. She clutched her stomach. She’d lit his flame and her grana had come. And not just any grana. But a grana that seemed evil. A grana that had helped her injure another kid.

      Taking a deep breath, Pretia blew on the flame in Hurell’s ceremonial bowl. Once, twice, three times she blew, but it only made the oil burn stronger. There was no choice but to let it go out on its own like the others around it had. There was no reversing what she had done.

      Her grana had come from Hurell. Her grana was cursed.

      2

      ROVI

      THE SHOES

      Rovi covered his ears as the sorna horn blasted across the Upper City of Phoenis. Overhead, on the bridge that spanned the river Durna, he could hear the first carts rolling toward the Alexandrine Market. He sat up, his back stiff as usual from sleeping on the hard ground. It was market day. There was no time to waste.

      Market days were the best days for stealing, everyone knew that. Which was why merchants tried to hire Star Stealers to be lookouts, paying them with a measly piece of fruit for a whole day’s work. Rovi would never do that. Six hours of standing in one spot in order to get a peach was not good business. And it was boring.

      He preferred to steal.

      Not a lot, and never from the vendors who couldn’t afford it. He stole only what he needed for a few days. Honeycakes from the baker with the line down the street. A bag of plums from the fruit seller whose stand was so overstocked that he didn’t care when a pile of oranges or figs tumbled to the ground.

      But Rovi knew he had to be cautious and keep an eye out. Not just because of the merchants and their lookouts and the red-­turbaned Phoenician guards—members of a severe military order—who patrolled the marketplace, but also because of the other gangs of Star Stealers who might either rat him out to the authorities or steal from the best stalls before he got there. Everyone wanted to catch Swiftfoot, as he was known. Luckily, no one had.

      Rovi had been on his own ever since his father had died. His mother had died many years earlier, when he was only two years old, and he had barely any memory of her at all.

      His father, once one of the brightest minds in Epoca, had wound up a beggar on the streets of Phoenis, the capital city of the Sandlands region. And once his father was gone, Rovi had become just another lost boy, a Star Stealer, neither Dreamer nor Realist. A missing soul.

      It didn’t take long for him to become famous in Phoenis, or rather infamous. From the head of the Phoenician guards to the common street criminals, everyone had heard of Swiftfoot. He had stolen an entire side of beef on its way to the head magistrate. He had stolen a wedding cake made for a visiting Realist princess. He had stolen a crate of fish freshly arrived from the Rhodan Islands. He had stolen a plum right out of the hand of the head of the guards himself and eaten it while running backward to avoid capture.

      But today, Rovi wasn’t out to steal food. There was something else he needed—running shoes. His last pair, hand-me-downs from Issa, had worn thin. There was a hole in the sole of one shoe, and the rubber on the other had come unglued and flapped loudly when Rovi ran. And the last thing a good thief needed was to make additional noise.

      He rolled up his bedding and stashed it in the archway under the Draman Bridge where he and the rest of Issa’s gang slept. He could hear the carts rumbling overheard as merchants flooded into Phoenis. He gnawed a day-old crust of bread and took a swallow from a canteen someone had filled from a public fountain. For the last time, he hoped, he laced up his battered running shoes.

      Today was the final market day of the month—the largest one—when vendors from all over the Sandlands and even from some of the other regions of Epoca traveled to Phoenis. This was the day that the best goods would be available, not just the local crafts, but ones perfected in distant lands. This was the day that the Alkebulan rubber merchant would arrive with his stall of bold and brilliant running sneakers. And Rovi could think of nothing better than a pair of those sleek, gleaming shoes—not a three-course meal, not a roof over his head, not even a bag full of gold coins. He wanted a pair of gold Grana Gleams. And he was going to get them.

      It was early, but the sun was already strong. The first merchants and customers had wound their scarves around their heads to protect themselves from the bright glare. A light wind was blowing, enough to kick up some sand from the streets, but nothing like the sandstorms that could shut down the market for hours, driving everyone away from the stalls, choking the air with yellow grit that flew up your nose and into your eyes. Rovi did his best work during the sandstorms, using the sandy tornado as cover to dodge from vendor to vendor, taking what he wanted and slipping away literally unseen.

      But there would be no such luck today. The weather was not on Rovi’s side.

      He crossed the bridge, darting among carts filled with silky shorts and shirts, handcrafted sandals,

Скачать книгу