Son of Ereubus Read Free

well-worn linen tunic and pants that were in an even worse state of disrepair. Her intention was to slip out before daybreak, but sunlight blistered the horizon, washing the room in shades of bright pink and red.
    Koen, her canine companion, looked up from where he rested on the floor and sniffed his disapproval.
    “I’m not interested in your opinion Koen. You’re only in it for the food,” she whispered. Shaking her head, Ariana turned to the window and pushed open the weathered wood. Three days and the winter festival will be over, everything will return to the ordinary and mundane.
    “Are you interested in my opinion?”
    Ariana sighed, dropping her head. Without turning around, she knew the doorway to her bedroom was occupied by a head full of hair the color of spun sugar.
    “Not particularly, but I fear I have little choice in the matter.”
    Sara seated herself on the bed and folded her hands in her lap. “Let them have their fun, Ari. It does everyone good to celebrate the victory, however small it may have been.”
    Ariana let go of the window frame and rested her back against the wall. “I don’t need to remind you who was lost in that victory. ”
    Sara gave her a graceful smile. “Hiding won’t bring her back. Wouldn’t she want you to enjoy this time with us?”
    Ariana unconsciously toyed with her mother’s necklace as she considered this, then tucked it safely into her shirt. “Perhaps — but I am not my mother, nor am I as gentle a soul as she was.” As she spoke, the sounds of the hearth in the main room grew louder as Bella began to cook for the day. This was not going as she had hoped. “Why are you here at this hour?”
    Sara giggled. “You think me completely daft, do you?”
    Ariana’s stomach growled and, as much as she hated to admit it, the smells drifting from below the door had begun to hold her attention.
    “I suppose I was coming to bid you farewell. And maybe ask where you were planning on hiding this year, so that if you fail to show up after a few days I’ll know where to send everyone.”
    “Tell them I’ve gone to Eidolon in search of my father,” Ariana grinned. “That should keep them occupied for at least a few days.”
    “Be serious. Are you really avoiding the whole affair?”
    Palingard was not the fortified kingdom of Sara’s ancestry. It was squalid in some places and simply poor in others. The festival, while lavish for their resources, was nothing that could rightly be called an affair. More than anything it was a complete waste of resources that would be needed sorely in the coming year.
    “Sara, we have this same argument every year, and every year the result is the same. This is idiocy — to celebrate a victory some fifteen years old. What have we learned since then? How have we improved our safeguards? There aren’t any, and the few who held to what my father taught them are no longer here. Don’t you think if your fairy tales were real, they would have come true by now? What about the few seasons running when nearly every crop we had withered and died? What then? Your mythical saviors didn’t swoop in to teach us how to rotate crops; we had to figure that out on our own. I just can’t be around it right now. It’s too much.”
    The silence was drawn out to what felt like an eternity. Finally, the mild exasperation in Sara’s eyes shifted back into her traditional congeniality, tinged with a bit of sadness. “Then at least tell me where you’re going so I won’t worry about you.”
    Ariana had a habit of being hard around the edges, even bitter at times, but deep down she was heavy-hearted and regretted her tone. “Sara, forgive me. I have been horrid to you lately. I don’t mean to be, it’s just — I’m sorry. I’ll be near the bluff or just south of it.”
    Bella called from the kitchen, “Your breakfast is cooling while you take your time chattering away, and don’t even think about bringing that troublesome friend of yours to the