The Portal 00 - Legacy of the Witch Read Free

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    “Amarrah, are you okay? What’s up? You never watch TV.”
    I blinked. “I thought I knew her. But, um, I was wrong.”
    I have to go to Ohio, I
thought.
    But you can’t. You’ve got finals coming
up.
    Not for two weeks. That’s plenty of time
to get there and get back.
    Don’t be ridiculous. How will you even
find her?
    Not her. Him. She said it belonged to her
fiancé.
    Still…
    All the way to the library I was having this inner argument. I
didn’t have a lot of money, but Ohio wouldn’t be an impossible drive, and I did
have a decent car. I could take my books with me, try to get as many assignments
in advance as I could and cram for finals on the road.
    It could be done.
    The notion just wouldn’t leave me alone. And when I slept that
night, I swore my grandmother was standing over my bed, shouting at me. “You
must go, Amarrah! You must go and get the box! You promised me!”
    And from there I dissolved into an image from the story. I was
thirteen and very dirty, dressed in rags, with bruises on my arms and face. I’d
finished my chores and run to play along the edges of the riverbank, where the
grasses were tall and lush, and there I’d spotted a beautiful boy swinging a
sword as if in the heat of battle with some invisible enemy.
    Hiding behind the tall reeds, I watched, fascinated by him,
until he tripped over a stone and fell on his face. I couldn’t quite suppress my
giggle.
    He spotted me, frowned and pushed himself up, brushing the dust
off his clothes. “Come on out, girl. I see you hiding there.”
    Bashful, and wondering if I’d just earned myself another
whipping, I stepped out into his view, painfully aware of my disheveled state. I
tried to smooth my hair back, but it was of little use. “I didn’t mean to spy on
you,” I said. “It’s just that I’ve never seen a boy so young wield a sword with
so much skill.” Flattery, I thought, might save me from punishment. But even so,
it was no less than the truth.
    He smiled a little. “Even if I did make a fool out of myself at
the end.”
    “You were intent on your form. You didn’t see that stone.”
    “Did it seem…good?” he asked. “My form, I mean.”
    I met his eyes, touched that my opinion was of any interest to
him. “To me it did. I couldn’t look away.”
    He smiled wider and came closer. “I’m Harmon, son of Brock. My
father’s one of the most skilled swordsmen in the king’s guard. He’s been
training me to join him in the ranks.”
    “You’ll be a soldier, too, then?”
    “I hope to be, yes.” He looked me up and down. “And you…you’re
a servant girl, yes?”
    I nodded. “Amarrah. I’ve been a kitchen slave since I can
remember, but today was my last day. Tonight I get to move into the harem
quarters, to be slave girl to the slave girls.” I smiled when I said it, and he
did, too, getting the joke.
    “Bet they’ll clean you up some. I’ve never seen a dirty slave
in the harem quarters.”
    “You’ve been inside?” I asked.
    “No. I meant…no.” He moved closer to me, then, bending, dipped
his hand into the sacred river. Rising, he wiped my face with his wet
fingertips. He did this a few times, then stood back. “You’re going to fit in
there,” he said. “I see beauty under all that dirt.”
    I felt the blood rush straight to my cheeks. He had returned my
compliments with one of his own, though he could not have known how deeply it
had touched me.
    Then someone called my name. The fat cook, who’d warned me
earlier that she had orders to get me cleaned up and dressed appropriately for
my move into the harem quarters.
    “I have to go.”
    “If the old bat beats you again,” he said with a sharp eye on
my bruises, “kick her in the shins and run away. You should not have to take
that. At least not anymore.”
    “If she does, it will be the last time. The ladies of the harem
are kind. I’ll be grateful to them forever for taking me away from the
kitchens.” The cook