Reign of Shadows - Deborah Chester [32]
Down into this she scrambled, beckoning for him to follow.
Caelan’s tired, cold joints creaked as he got down on his knees and crawled into the tent beside her. He was too big for it. His head poked against the hide, and Lea’s elbow jammed into his side as she turned around.
“Is this the surprise?” he asked.
“No, silly.” She was busy rummaging among her collection of cloth dolls sewn from scraps by Anya’s kind hands, with horn buttons for eyes and hair made from shawl yarn. “We have to wake up the dolls, I’m afraid. You were so late I had already put them to sleep.”
He had a vision of having to greet each doll by name and kiss it or something. Caelan yawned and rubbed the back of his neck. He was too tired for this.
“Here!” Lea said triumphantly. She pulled out a slim, flat box and plunked it in his lap. “I have to hide it, you see, so I let my dolls guard it. No one would ever look for it under their bed.”
“No, indeed,” Caelan agreed solemnly. He picked up the box and wondered with an inward sigh if he would find dried worm remains or colored sand inside it. “What is it, then?”
Lea’s face was round-eyed in the shadows. She tensed with excitement. “Open it,” she whispered.
Gingerly, he flipped the small catch and raised the lid. Nine pebbles, each about the size of his thumb, lay jumbled inside. He tried not to sigh.
“Very nice,” he said without interest and started to lay down the box. Some glimmer from the lamplight sparked a glint of green. Caelan frowned and picked up one of the pebbles. Squinting to see it better, he held it up to the light.
It was angular in shape, with crisp facets. The green surface was rough, yet as he slid his finger over it he knew it could be polished. Quickly he picked up another pebble, and another, examining them all.
Excitement started thudding in his chest. Suddenly he couldn’t quite breathe normally. He looked at Lea’s upturned face. “Are these what I think they are?”
“I wanted you to tell me,” she said. “After all, you would know for sure. Are they emeralds, Caelan?”
He held the stones in his hand, hefting them. “I think they are.”
She giggled and leaned against his arm. “Good ones?”
He didn’t know. They were certainly big enough to be extremely valuable. “Great Gault,” he whispered, not caring for once if he swore in her presence. “Lea, where did you find them?”
“I’ll show you tomorrow,” she said. “I’ve been wishing and wishing for you to come home. And now you have. Maybe my talent is for shaping the thread of life.”
He burst out laughing. “Where did you hear that !”
“I thought it up myself. Don’t laugh at me.”
Hastily he straightened his face. “I would never laugh at you.”
“Yes, you are. Your eyes are still smiling.”
He drew down his mouth and crossed his eyes in an awful grimace.
She crowed with laughter and punched him. “Silly!”
He put the emeralds back into the box and closed the lid with unsteady fingers. These stones represented a fortune.
More than enough to buy his way into the army.
The thought came unbidden, and swiftly he thrust it away. He wasn’t going to steal his own sister’s treasure, but perhaps he could find some of the precious stones for himself.
“Where did you find these?” he asked.
“In the ice caves. Where else?”
“You shouldn’t be playing in places like thai,” he said automatically. “Especially in winter.”
Sometimes lurkers made dens in ice caves. And some of the caves, especially the older ones, sang. It was a trick of wind blowing through cracks in the ice, some said. Others who believed in the old ways said the earth spirits sang to lure the unwary. Either way, the melodies rang out like crystal, hypnotic enough to draw the listener deeper into the caves, until there was no way out again.
Caelan had grown up exploring ice caves of all kinds. He’d fallen into the lures of the singing caves and barely made it out. Once he’d almost been