Valiant Read Free Page A

how I know those two aren’t giants, like some claim. They’re too pretty, too human. A giant would be more lumpy.”
    I laughed, glad for a chance to crawl out of the ugliness of the day. “Lumpy?”
    “Lumpy. Do you think a giant would have fingers that could sew so well as your father?” Luca must have seen the anger in my eyes, for he plunged ahead. “Or a nose as straight and fine as that young merchant’s you were talking with?”
    Then I saw the clusters of bare trees along the Kriva’s banks. They had sturdy enough trunks, but I’d never seen such branches: masses of slender limbs that hung like curtains or hair. Some nearly brushed the river. What would they look like in the spring, covered with leaves?
    I pointed. “What kind of trees are those?” I thought I knew, but I needed to be sure.
    Luca turned to see. “Willows. They’re common enough. Love the water. Why do you ask?”
    I shook my head.
    But I couldn’t look away.
    Mama had named me after a place a traveler had spoken of. Saville was a tiny village, but the traveler had described it so well that Mama’d ached to see it. She’d named me after the village with the willows.
    Now, at seventeen, I saw willows for the first time. For a few long breaths, they were all I could see.
    Then I glanced over my shoulder. Father was arguing with the merchants about the cost of delivering us and our goods to an inn.
    I scampered toward the bank, the bag gripped in my hand. A moment later, I slipped past the curtain of branches that bent close to the ground. I heard a few notes, I swear I did, as if the wind plucked the willow branches like harp strings.
    Father would remember the music box soon, and he’d want it, and then we would fight because I’d never give it to him. Or he would look for it when I was away, and I’d return to discover the pieces were gone.
    Better that they stay here. I looked around to mark the spot: three willows over from a tumble of boulders. Then I knelt at the base of the tree and began to scrape at the soil. Within a minute, I had a deep enough hole. I gently laid the bag in the ground and patted the soil over it, glad I’d found a home for Mama’s song.
    I looked at Reggen standing between its two great Guardians, then back at Father, already shouting with the merchants. Even here, with no guild to crowd him, he had to fight. It would be like Danavir all over again—the disputes with other tailors, the arguments at night, sewing for him because no apprentice dared risk his fury. I couldn’t live like that again.
    I wouldn’t.
    I wouldn’t stay with Father for a moment longer than I had to. I’d make a home for myself, somehow, even if I had to carve it out of the cliffs.

Chapter 2
    “ H ere it is,” said Father.
    We stood in a narrow street, looking at our new shop—a modest storefront with a green door and windows that faced the street. All of Reggen was made of stone, as though the city itself had sprung whole from the cliffs behind it. This shop, slumping between its neighbors, was no different, its building stones cracked from supporting its weight for so long.
    I’d never missed the thatched roofs of Danavir more.
    Father had brought his old shop sign all the way from Danavir. He plucked it from the hired wagon and hung it above a small, rust-colored door in the same building:
Tailor
.
    Just
Tailor
, the way others would say
King
.
    Then he unlocked the narrow door—
not
the green one—and tugged it open. All I saw was a flight of stairs more narrow than the door itself.
    Sky above. He’d bought us a garret shop. We’d freeze in the winter and bake in the summer.
    “What do you think, Saville?” He turned with a flourish, as if he’d opened the door to a castle.
    I just stared, the early spring sunlight barely warming my back. I couldn’t answer. Then I rushed past him and plunged up into the gloom. The stairs were steep and uneven, and I stumbled twice as I climbed.
    When I reached the top, my