Sin Eater's Daughter 2 - The Sleeping Prince Read Free Page A

from now on. The border is closed. Anyone caught trying to cross it will be killed on sight.”
    We draw in our breath as one, taking all the air from the room.
    “Given its strategic position, the village has been requisitioned as a barracks and base of operations for the garrison defending the border. Almwyk is to be evacuated. Immediately.”
    No. There is the tiniest fragment of a moment in which the news filters into the brains of the occupants of the room.
    Then all hell breaks loose.

I found out about the meeting when Chanse Unwin rapped on my door before the sun had risen this morning. I’d finally fallen asleep an hour or two before dawn, and I’d been dreaming of the man again. This time we were standing on the bridge over the river, near my old home in Tremayne. It was summer; silver fish darted in the clear water beneath us, and the sun beat down on us, making my scalp warm. I was dressed in my old apprentice’s uniform. The dress was blue and clean, the many pockets of my apron full of small vials and plants and powders. I could smell them, the herby, pungent tang of rosemary and willow bark and pine: scents that meant home and knowledge, work and happiness. I reached into one of the pockets and let my fingers drift through dried leaves as I listened to him speak.
    He was tall, thin, cloaked and hooded despite the warm weather, and he stooped as he spoke, his body curved towards me, making us a circle of two as he told me some tale, his hands moving gracefully through the air to illustrate his story. The words were lost immediately, in the way they often are in dreams, but the feelings they evoked remained, and I knew his words had been chosen to make me laugh – really laugh – deep, creasing belly laughs that had me clutching my stomach with the pain of so much joy. He smiled at my delight and it made it all the sweeter.
    When I finally stopped laughing, I turned to him and watched as he rummaged inside his cloak. He pulled out a small doll and pushed it towards me, sliding it over the stone of the bridge. I reached out, taking it, my fingers brushing against his. I heard his breath catch and it made my stomach ache in a different sort of way.
    “What is it?” I asked, looking at the tiny figure.
    “It’s you,” he replied. “I like to carry you with me. I like to keep you close. To watch over you.”
    Then he took the doll back, plucking it from where I’d held it cradled in my hand and replacing it carefully in the folds of his cloak, while I watched, my heart beating double time inside me. Though I couldn’t see his face, I could tell he was looking at me and I blushed, which prompted him to smile softly, his lips parting, his tongue moistening them.
    The thumping of my heart grew louder as he moved closer, until suddenly it became the insistent banging of the front door, and I was yanked out of my summer dream to hear rain beating against the wooden shutters. The pain in my stomach wasn’t from laughing but from hunger, and the dream drifted away like a broken spiderweb. I was both heartbroken and relieved. It was bittersweet here in Almwyk, in winter, to think of Tremayne in the sun.
    Stretching as best I could, I hauled myself up from the pallet on the floor, pulling one of the blankets around me as a makeshift cloak, and hit my knee against the table leg with a hollow crack that knocked me sick. I took advantage of the relative privacy to swear violently while the rapping on the front door continued, rhythmic as a pulse.
    When I opened it, Chanse Unwin stood there, pale, fleshy lips split into a grin as he looked me up and down. My skin prickled as his eyes roamed over my blanket-draped body.
    “Errin, good morning. Have I woken you?”
    “Of course not, Mr Unwin.” My answering smile was all teeth.
    His grin widened. “Good, good. I would hate to think I’d inconvenienced you. May I speak with your mother?”
    “I’m afraid she’s not here.”
    He peered behind me as if he