Roads of the Righteous and the Rotten (Order of Fire Book 1) Read Free Page A

you see that chur tree afar off?” he said, pointing toward the woods. “There’s a fruit that seems to have blossomed early. It’s nearly at the top. Do you see it?”
    Shahla directed her sight to the chur tree. She looked through the top branches until she noticed a green, bulb- shaped item amid the foliage. The unripe fruit was glazed with snow. Peculiar among its surroundings, it stood out like a diamond against a dunghill.
    “I see it,” Shahla responded. She already had her bow in one hand; the other hand reached for her quiver. She took her time, carefully selecting the arrow. She was quiet, and all the while focused on the target.
    “Now it’s quite a ways away.” Zar turned to Shahla. “Don’t be sore if you can’t make the shot.” The arrow sliced through the wind and stuck against something solid—he heard it. Seeing Shahla standing there on Dalya’s back, so confident, so composed, made his neck jump and twist eagerly to the trees, his eyes darting back and forth to find the fruit. He searched hard among the branches, but could find the target nowhere, and that taken with Shahla’s self- assured posture—it was all starting to tally up. The fruit no longer hung in the tree.
    Zar made for the trees slowly, leaning over and peering into the forest. Raising his gaze a bit higher he caught sight of Barek’s yellow fletching not far into the woods. The arrow had found its abode in a large tree branch, and surely enough, the single fruit he had selected was pinned to the bough along with it.
    “Leviathan!” He called. “ You got it !” Zar sounded as if he didn’t believe it himself. “Right through the center,” he said to himself quietly, as if confirming what his eyes saw. Shahla rode up looking quite contented. “You believed I still couldn’t shoot, didn’t you?”
    Zar turned himself back towards her. “I believed your aim was the same as when I left,” he said, still looking surprised by it all. “And how wrong I was.” Zar turned and looked up at the branch once again. It was a perfect shot. Shahla smiled complacently. “There’s never much to do in the meadow so I started shooting every day.”
    “And the practice has certainly paid off,” Zar replied. “Aye, it has,” said Shahla. “I’ll need to know how to shoot when I’m exploring different lands like you.”
    “You’ve always wanted to travel.”
    “And you’ve never wanted to take me with you,” said Shahla with a faint smile, turning Dalya away from the forest and giving her a kick. The mare jogged off and Zar turned to find her trotting down the plain. He knew exactly where she was going, around the bend, past the byroad, over the hill and down to the brook. She knew he would follow her there, and after watching Dalya’s powerful legs kick into a gallop, Zar commanded Asha to run as well.
    Dalya was fast, and Shahla quickly disappeared over the hill. When Zar came over she had already dismounted and was lying in the grass. He wasted no time joining her by the stream.
    “What is it about traveling that you believe you’ll enjoy the most?” Zar asked, lying beside Shahla. His head was rested back in the soft grass of the bank, his face to the sky.
    “There are many things,” she replied. “New faces, creatures, beautiful lands, treasure, and gold—”
    “And fighting, and death,” Zar interrupted, “You seem to have forgotten those.”
    “Aye, but there are more good things than bad,”
    Shahla insisted. “Besides, I’d be with you.” She turned her gaze from the clouds to Zar. “Would you not protect me?” The young woman let out a giggle.
    Zar’s heartbeat quickened. What he wanted to say was that he would kill anyone who touched one hair on her head, and that death wasn’t nearly an adequate penalty for anyone who tried to harm her; but as he lay there in the grass, his heart throbbing, all he could bring himself to say was, “Of a certain.”
    Zar remembered his first year in the