The Reader Read Free Page A

branches, made awkward and slow by the weight of her pack.
    Was that crashing in the foliage the sound of her own passage, or the sounds of a chase?
    She stole a glance behind her, imagining the creak of leather boots, the pounding of feet.
    She ran faster, the hard rectangular object beating painfully against the base of her spine. The woods grew hot and humid around her.
    Word travels quick.
She had to get Nin. If the redcoats knew Nin was in Oxscini, there was no telling who else knew too.
    The campsite was only twenty yards ahead when, without warning, the forest around her went silent. The birds stopped singing. The insects stopped buzzing. Even the wind stopped whispering. Sefia froze, all her senses alert, her breath sounding loud as a lumber saw in the unmoving undergrowth. Her skin crawled.
    Then came the smell. Not the foul, rotting smell of sewage but a too-clean smell, like copper. A smell she could taste. A smell she could feel tingling in the tips of her fingers.
    A smell she knew.
    Through the trees, she heard Nin’s voice, low and guarded, the same voice she used when she was facing down large game, all claws and tusks, ready to charge: “So. You finally found me.”

Chapter 2

Worse Than Redcoats
    S efia ducked into the nearest patch of ferns, trembling so violently the fronds began quivering at her touch. The stench of scorched earth and copper was so strong her insides hummed with it.
    There was the sound of laughter, like ground glass. “I almost didn’t believe it when we got word some redcoats nearly caught you in the Oxscinian backwoods, but here you are.”
    We.
Sefia dug her fingers into the dirt. Her suspicions had been right. Someone—a group of someones—
had
been searching for them. And found them.
    Because of her.
    She began pulling herself along the ground. Spider-webs caught in her hair. Thorns pricked her skin. She gritted her teeth and kept going, inching closer and closer to the campsite.
    â€œI’ve spent my whole apprenticeship hunting you. I wasn’t even sure you were as uncatchable as everyone said you were—”
    â€œGet on with it, will you?” Nin interrupted.
    A quick, muffled snap made Sefia pause, eyes wide, in the brush. But through the huge, shovel-shaped leaves she could see nothing.
    â€œ. . . or if you were dead.”
    After a moment, Nin grunted, “Still kicking.”
    â€œFor now.”
    No.
Sefia dragged herself through the brush.
Not again.
    Ignoring the spines of an overgrown rattan, she wedged herself up against a rotting log shrouded with moss and air plants. Branches caught at her clothing, but through the spiked leaves and dead vines, she could almost see what was happening in the clearing.
    Nin was on her knees, gingerly touching the side of her head. A trickle of blood ran down the heel of her hand and dropped from her wrist.
    A hooded woman stood over her. Clothed all in black, the woman was like a shadow come striding out of the forest, all violence and darkness. At her side, her right hand rested on the hilt of a curved sword.
    Past the screen of leaves, Sefia could just make out the forms of two black horses tied among the trees. Two horses. There was someone else in the clearing.
    â€œSearch her,” came a man’s voice, dry and brittle as bones.
    Sefia shuddered at the sound of it.
    The woman in black knelt in front of Nin’s pack andupended its contents onto the forest floor. The pots and knives, the tent and hatchet, the collapsible brass spyglass, all of Nin’s belongings came clattering out in a burst of noise. Sefia started. Rattan spines raked her cheek, drawing blood.
    She barely noticed. A cold rivulet of fear ran down her spine. Sefia could see the woman clearly now. Her enemy had a face: ugly dishwater eyes and cratered skin, with a few limp locks of hair floating around her cheeks.
    Was this the same person who had killed her father?
    â€œIt’s not here,”