The Lost Heiress #2

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DIAL BOOKS
An imprint of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
Published by The Penguin Group
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First published in the United States 2011
by Dial Books for Young Readers
Published in Great Britain 1999 as
The Interrex
by Random House Children’s Books UK

Copyright © 1999 by Catherine Fisher

All rights reserved The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

 

 

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Fisher, Catherine, date.
The lost heiress / by Catherine Fisher.
p. cm.—(Relic Master ; [2])

Summary: Even though the city of Tasceron and its Emperor have fallen, when Master Galen and his sixteen-year-old apprentice, Raffi, hear a rumor that the heiress to the throne still lives, they must try to find her and keep her safe.

eISBN : 978-1-101-51614-0

[1. Fantasy. 2. Apprentices—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.F4995Lo 2011 [Fic]—dc22 2010038156

T
HE STRAIN ON HIS ARMS was agony. Clutching the rope, he hauled himself up, hand over hand, gripping with aching knees and ankles.

“Hurry up!” The Sekoi leaned precariously from the tower ledge above, its seven fingers stretching for him. Behind it the Maker-wall glimmered in the light of the moons.

Raffi gave one last desperate pull, flung his hand up, and grabbed. A hard grip clenched on his; he was dragged onto the ledge and clung there, gasping and soaked with sweat.

“Not bad,” the creature purred in his ear. “Now look down.”

Below them, the night was black. Somewhere at the tower’s smooth base Galen was waiting, a shadow with a hooked face of moonlight, staring up. Even from here Raffi could feel his tension.

“Now what?”

“The window.” Delicately the Sekoi put its long hand out and wriggled it through the smashed, patched pane. A latch clicked. The casement creaked softly open.

The creature’s fur tickled Raffi as it whispered, “In you go.”

Raffi nodded. Silently he swung his feet and slithered over the sill, standing in the still room.

In the moonlight he sent a sense-line out, feeling at once the tangled dreams of the man in the bed, the sleeping bodyguards outside the door, and then, as he groped for it, the bright mind-echo of the relic, the familiar blue box.

It was somewhere near the bed.

He pointed; the Sekoi nodded, its yellow eyes catching the light. Raffi began to cross the room. He knew there was no one else here, but if Alberic woke up and yelled, there soon would be. The tiny man seemed lost in the vast bed, its hangings purple and crimson damask, heavy and expensive. Beside the bed was a table, a dim shadow of smooth wood, and he could just see the gleam of a drawer-handle. The relic box was in there.

Galen’s box.

Inch by inch, Raffi’s hand moved toward the drawer.

Alberic snuffled, turned over. His face was close to Raffi now; a sly face, even in sleep. Soundlessly, Raffi opened the drawer, pushed his fingers in, and touched the box. Power jerked through him; his fingers clenched on it and he almost hissed with the shock. Then it was out, and shoved deep inside his jerkin.

Glancing back, he saw the Sekoi’s black shape breathless against the window; behind it the stars were bright. He backed, carefully.

But Alberic was restless, turning and tossing in his rich covers; with each step back Raffi felt the dwarf’s sharp mind bubbling up out of the dark, a growing unease. As he turned and grabbed the window he felt the moment of waking like a pain.

Alberic sat bolt upright. He stared across the dark room; in that instant he saw them both, and a strangled scream of fury broke out of him. In seconds Raffi was out, slithering down the rope after the Sekoi, so fast that the heat seared the gloves on his hands, and as he hit the bottom and crumpled to his knees he heard the dogs erupt into barking and the screeching of Alberic’s wrath.

Galen’s hand grabbed him. “Have you got it?”

“Yes!”

The dwarf’s head jutted from the high window. “Galen Harn!” he screamed, his voice raw. “And you, Sekoi! I’ll kill you both for this!”

He seemed to be demented with rage; someone had to haul him back inside. “I’ll kill you!” he shrieked.

But the night was dark. They were already long gone.

Flainsdeath

Book of the Seven Moons

“
A
re you sure you’ve got everything?” Rocallion asked anxiously.

Raffi finished arranging the black and green beads and looked around. “Maybe a few more candles.”

“I’ll get them sent up. Will the keeper be ready?”

They both glanced across the dim room. Galen was sitting by the fire, in an upright chair. He seemed to be daydreaming, staring deep into the flames, but when Raffi reached out for the keeper’s soul, he couldn’t find it; it was walking far away in some place he hadn’t yet learned to reach. “He’ll be ready in his own time.”

Rocallion nodded, pulling berries nervously off the holly. He was a young man to be franklin of so big a manor, Raffi thought, but he seemed to run it well. The fields they’d traveled through yesterday had been wellplowed, the cottages in good repair. And now Rocallion was worried; it made Raffi worry too.

“No more news of the Watch?” Raffi asked.

Rocallion perched on the edge of the bench. He nearly put the holly berry in his mouth, then tossed it absently into the fire. “Only the rumor of that patrol out at Tarnos. That was two days ago. Before the leaf-fall.” He gazed out at the darkening sky. “It should keep them indoors. But on Flainsnight, you never know.”