The Spirit Gate Read Free

don’t . . .
listen very well.”
    “You’ve been distracted, I
know.” Asenka gave the carrot a shake, then started peeling it. “Blaz . . .
isn’t an easy man
to get along with always.”
    Blaz wasn’t
an easy man to get along with ever , Kassia thought, but she
kept her peace. “And
now he wants me to leave—oh,
not that he hasn’t always wanted me to leave, but now he has ample reason.”
    Asenka’s
head came up, eyes glinting. “This
house is half mine. I should tell him if I want to let part of my half to my
own sister—”
    “Aska,
there is not enough room in this little house for nine people. There isn’t enough room in it
for eight, but you’ve
made do. I understand this isn’t
your decision. Please, don’t
torture yourself that you should have done more. Beyla and I will go.”
    “But
where will you go? Janka’s
in no better situation than I am, and you make so little with your herbals and
such. I suppose if you had more reading students, you might—”
    Kassia moved to lay a gentle hand on her sister’s shoulder. “Let me worry about
that, Aska. I’ll
think of something.”
    She would have to think of something, for Beyla’s sake, whether it was
coming up with more exciting herbal cures and enhancers or finding more folk
who wanted to learn to read and write. But neither of those things were
entirely practical. She wasn’t
the only one in town who could do adequate herbals and there were a good number
of folk who wouldn’t
touch anything she’d
prepared anyway. As for reading—those
that wanted to learn usually went to Lorant and those who didn’t, simply didn’t. What did it avail a
blacksmith or a shepherd to read?
    Despair was trying to settle on her. There really was very
little she could do in a village like Dalibor and the thought of moving to a
city like Radom, Ratibor or Tabor terrified her. Asenka was right about Janka,
too—not only was
their elder sister’s
situation similar to Asenka’s,
but even if it weren’t,
she’d hardly be
inclined to take her younger sibling and nephew in. That reality, perhaps, was
the hardest for Kassia to bear.
    Feeling her sister’s
melting eyes on her, she murmured, “I’ve got to go think,” and fled outside. But first , she thought, first , I have to get this wretched weight out of my soul.
    She wandered aimlessly for a while, making an effort to
think, but doing very little thinking. At length, she found herself back down
by the river, standing on a little stone jetty that thrust into the broad
stream to shield the village fishing boats from the current. Her eyes went
where they would, and they would go across the river to the dark tangle of dead
trees and brush that almost hid the ruins of lost Dalibor.
    There had been cottages among those trees once, not that
long ago. She had lived in one of them with her husband, Shurik, and Beyla.
From where she stood, she could just catch a glimpse of a broken wall. Stone—that would have been
her parent’s
house. Her house, and Shurik’s,
had been made of wood. It was gone, washed away along with her father, her
husband . . . her life.
    The river smelled gently green and sang sweetly, yet it was
easy—too easy—for Kassia to bring
back the terror and fury of that night three years ago, when the storms had
reached their peak, when the Pavla Yeva, swollen and enraged, had swarmed her
banks and over-run the lower reaches of Dalibor.
    Because both mother and daughter were shai. That’s what the villagers
had said. Because of them, the river had escaped its banks. Because of that,
Mat had taken their men.
    It was true in a sense; Jedrus Telek and Shurik Cheslaf had
died because they lived on the northern bank of the Pavla Yeva and they had
lived there because their women were shai. Since that night Kassia had lived
more or less in hiding—her
hair covered along with her burgeoning shai senses, her magics bottled up to be
dispensed only in the most mundane or secret of ways, she