The Way of Things: Upper Kingdom Boxed Set: Books 1, 2 and 3 in the Tails of the Upper Kingdom Read Free

with a dreamy sigh, Fallon
Waterford dragged her eyes from the window and back to the cramped, cluttered
room which had served as her home these past eight months. It was so very
different from her real home in the foothills near Parnum’bah Falls. There she and her parents and sisters
had had all the space they could ever need. Groves of banana, flocks of crested
pheasant and glacier-fed rivers stocked with fish. Again, she smiled, for
thoughts of home brought pleasant memories. A
tiger’s paradise, her father had called it, and she heartily agreed. She
would be enjoying it all still, if only she hadn’t been so cursedly,
maddeningly, wonderfully clever.
    Sighing, she snatched the scroll
from her workbench, the ink still dripping and fresh. She cleared her throat
and began:

 
    “THE YEAR OF THE TIGER – A LAMENT
    by Empress Faisala the Wise,
Second Dynasty, Year of the Tiger
    The
Year of the Tiger brings war.
    The
Year of the Tiger brings change.
    Kingdoms
rise, Kingdoms fall.
    Nothing
is the same.

 
    The
Year of the Tiger means joy.
    The
Year of the Tiger means strife.
    Beginnings
end, Endings begin,
    The
heartbeat of life.

 
    The
Year of the Tiger brings change.
    Nothing
is as it seems.
    Big
adventures, Grand schemes,
    Nightmares
and Dreams.

 
    The
Year of the Tiger brings war.
    The
Year of the Tiger brings change.
    People
rise, People fall.
    Nothing
is a water buffalo.”

 
    “Water buffalo?? Water buffalo?!” With a dramatic cry,
she crumpled the scroll and tossed it to the floor. There were many scrolls
discarded there.
    A pheasant peeped at her from its
bamboo cage and she rolled her eyes at it with shrug.
    “But it’s so hard to write in MandaRhin! It’s so different from anything else.
Bad enough to memorize it but to have to write it as well! Oh mother! Imperial
is so much easier! I don’t know, Sica, sometimes I think I’ve bitten off far
more than I can chew here, and believe me, I can chew a lot…”
    The pheasant tucked its head under
its wing, dismissing her.
    “Yes, yes, I know. Mother would be
proud, but father, father would be pulling out his fur. ‘You’re a girl!’ he would say. “ What girl needs to know
how to write poetry in MandaRhin? Just find a fine young tiger and settle down
like your sisters. Have kittens, be happy.’”
    Her golden-orange face grew
wistful, the exotic stripes of darker fur creating worry-lines along her brow.
Truth be told, there may have been some ink.
    “I wonder if he’ll ever understand.
I am happy now, here, in the University. The things I am learning, Sica!
The ideas! The books - Oh, the books! I have never dreamed there could be so
many books, all in one place! Who needs men when you have such books?”
    The pheasant rebuked her.
    “Okay, men would be nice too.”
    Grinning, she reached out to close
the window, drawing the iron latch toward her with a click.
    Naturally, her reflection came with
it.
    The face in the glass was that of a
tigress, not having yet reached her 18 th summer, with a slim,
graceful build atypical of her Race. Her pelt was tawny-orange, her arms, legs,
back and tail banded with black. Splashes of white accentuated her long throat,
curved ears, and bright, wide eyes. Rings of kohl exaggerated her lashes and
arched over her brows to create a perpetual expression of wonder. The stripes
ran off her forehead like a river delta, her mane from her face like a
waterfall. It cascaded to her shoulders only to curl upwards on itself once
there, and each strand of hair was tipped in snowy white. Her mouth was small
but generous, and frequently contorted into a variety of smirks and smiles,
pouts and frowns, for she was both a creature of sunlight and a creature of stars.
    She stared at that face in the
window glass.
    What
had her mother always said?
    “’But Fallon, dear, you have such
nice markings...’” She yawned, stretched, blew a stray lock of hair from her
face. “Yep. Right up there with Good Family and Plentiful