Feast of Fates (Four Feasts Till Darkness Book 1) Read Free Page A

sister to have a look.
    “Bring those here!” snapped Elemech.
    “The gifts are for both of you,” reminded Eean, and her sister nodded and took the hand that Ealasyd had left, kissing it.
    “She is right, you know. I am colder without you. As harsh as the Long Winter,” confessed Elemech with regret. “I hope that I am to bear you this time. A kick inside my ribs might force some kindness into me.”
    “Perhaps. It is so hard on Ealasyd; she is so small, and my head and shoulders are so large,” Eean said, smiling.
    The sisters shared a laugh.
    In a wind of excitement, Ealasyd was upon them again. “Look!” she cried, shoving her arms over Eean and scattering her with items. First, Ealasyd picked up a rudimentary, four-legged clay figurine, which had the bloody tooth jammed into the bottom of its head.
A wolf
, thought Eean. Then Ealasyd claimed the second toy: a rag-doll woman made of pale mouse skins with a mane of red weeds.
A maiden
, decided Eean. The third creation lay on Eean’s stomach while Ealasyd had the wolf chase the maiden around it, andEean debated how to classify the thing. What was this ball of nettles and the bird husks—a skylark and a crow—that shared a black stone between their beaks?
    “What…is that?” wheezed Eean, curious.
    Ealasyd looked to the talisman and shrugged. “I’m not sure.”
    Elemech’s face waned with shadow. “Give those to me,” she demanded, and snatched the playthings from Ealasyd and the talisman that lay on her sister, too. While Ealasyd protested, Elemech raced off to a still pool that glimmered with soft light. Although Eean could not turn her head to see, she heard the splash as her sister tossed the items into the water.
    “It took me so long to make those! Hunting rats isn’t easy, and neither is scraping clay! Do you see, Eean? Do you see what I shall be left with?”
    “Hush, my sister. You made your toys well. It is Elemech’s turn to play with them,” said Eean. A wave of pain suddenly ran through her, and then the cold hand of death gripped her spine. “I love you, sister…I shall see you soon.”
    Ealasyd nodded her golden head and then placed it on her sister’s chest. She listened to the slowing heartbeat and wept. A few heartbeats later, Eean’s eyes fell shut, and that sorrow-sweet vision of Ealasyd was the last thing she saw in this life. However, even if muffled with cotton, she heard Elemech’s chanting, a rhythmic and fading echo, as she drifted down a swift river that her sisters could not follow. At the pool, the waters ran black, the discarded relics whirled deeper and deeper, and although her body remained upright, Elemech felt herself tip and flounder after them.
    First comes the tearing of her immaterial flesh: pins and needles stabbed into every nerve, a thousand mouths nibbling at her tenderest bits, a thousand whispers that hiss every weakness and failure she has ever known. Such magnificent torture should not be, for she is a ghost in this vision, not bone and meat that can be harmed. This is the Hungry Dark, and it has swallowed her utterly. But even as a watcher she is strong, even against the greatest of evils
.
    “You shall not have me today, Black Queen,” she declares
.
    She steels her Will and cuts through the clinging darkness like a blade of sunshine. In an instant, the blackness splits, and she is free of the Hungry Dark. As a bird, or a wind, she now soars over a scorched and fiery wasteland toward a grand city. A city once golden and now as red with the presence ofmurder as the great moat of fire that encompasses it. Coiled about the city’s spires are black serpents of smoke. This is Zioch, the Golden City, and it has fallen to evil. She does not need to contemplate the fate of Zioch’s Immortal King, for she can hear his tormented howls echoing through the haze. Amid his madness, she senses his sadness and knows that he has done something terrible to his brother
.
    “Fair king…” she says with