Shadows by E. C. Blake Page B

you on the road?”
    â€œI got lost,” Mara lied. “I was riding with my brother, and we were late setting out, and he said he knew a shortcut to a village where we could find an inn, but then it got dark and somehow I lost him and then I didn’t know where to go and then I came on your farm and then your dog came out barking and I fell and . . .” Cold, hurting, and worried, she didn’t have to work very hard to conjure up a few tears. Sniffling, she swiped the sleeve of her borrowed shirt across her nose.
    â€œYour brother must be worried sick!” Filia said, voice full of concern. “But I’m afraid we can’t do anything about that until morning.” She leaned forward and patted Mara’s hand. “You sleep in Greff’s room tonight. Tomorrow we’ll take you into Yellowgrass. Like as not your brother will be there waiting for you.”
    Mara nodded, still sniffling. “Won’t . . . won’t Greff mind? His room, I mean?”
    Filia smiled a sad smile. “Greff’s not here,” she said. “He turned fifteen a year ago and was chosen to join the Child Guard. A great honor. We were very pleased.” She didn’t sound pleased. She sounded on the verge of tears herself.
    And she doesn’t even know what I know
, Mara thought, feeling ill.
She doesn’t know that the Autarch is sucking magic—sucking
life
—right out of the Child Guard, that none of them thrive while in his service, that some of them die.
    Ethelda had told her that. She’d also told her, in one of their recent conversations, that as time went along, she feared
all
of the Child Guard would die: that the Autarch, needing to draw ever more magic to stave off his own aging, wouldn’t be able to help himself. “He’ll suck them dry and discard the husks,” she’d told Mara. “It’s already starting to happen. Any child taken into the Child Guard now I fear is as good as dead, if the Autarch remains on the throne.”
    â€œHow wonderful,” Mara forced herself to say to Filia.
    The farmwoman said nothing to that. “Into bed,” she said. “We’ll talk in the morning and figure everything out.”
    She showed Mara to the lean-to room, said good night, and went off to bed with her husband.
    Mara wanted nothing more than to lie down on that inviting bed, pull up the covers, and sleep until morning . . . but instead she sat, waiting, thinking she would sneak out as soon as they were asleep.
    Her plan survived only as long as it took for her to crack open the door and peek into the hallway.
    The big black dog lay across the threshold of the main door. His eyes locked on hers as she peered out. He growled.
    Swallowing, Mara eased the door closed again. For a moment she considered trying to climb out the window, but the dog would surely bark if she did that, and Jess had only to let him out the door and he would have her again.
    Looks like I have no choice but to spend the night
, Mara thought.
    She undressed and climbed beneath the covers into that warm, dry, blissfully comfortable bed.
Well, it could be worse
, was her last thought before sleep took her.
    She woke refreshed, hungry . . . and even more worried. (
It’s the eleventh of Winterwhite! Only two more days . . .)
Sometime before she’d awoken Filia had brought in her own clothes, neatly mended and dried; she wondered how the farm wife had had the time. She dressed, then asked diffidently where she might “refresh” herself and was pointed to an outhouse a little way down a path through the farmyard. The big black dog was nowhere to be seen, and neither was Jess.
Probably busy with farm chores
, she thought.
    The outhouse wasn’t as bad as she’d thought it might be, but as she came out, blinking in the morning sun, she almost jumped out of her skin as a voice from behind her said, “Are you