A Sword from Red Ice

Open ground. See for leagues. She shuddered, though not nearly as strongly as in the past. A year back she wouldn't have left the roundhouse unless bullied by Raina or Raif, enticed by the thought of Shankshounds, or driven out by the word "Fire!" Effie Sevrance had never liked outside. The more open it was the less she liked it, therefore woods were better than fields, low ground better than high. She couldn't say why this was so. Well maybe she could but the explanation was so … illogical that she didn't like to admit it, even to herself. You were exposed outside. Revealed. You could see the lay of the land, the age of it, the gnarled rootwood and weather-beaten stones. And it smelled too. In the morning, that first wash of mist: that was the real true smell of the earth. It was old and watchful and tricky. It looked wide open, but all that air could be hard to breathe. The sky above was big and loose and if you looked long enough you could see it spin. Outside everything was moving, watching, growing, changing. Inside all was still.

And no eyes could find you there. Here was the strange bit—oh she knew the other stuff was odd, but this was odd on a different level— Effie thought something without good intentions was trying to seek her out. What that might be, she would be hard-pressed to come up with. She'd once overheard Orwin Shank talking to Jebb Onnacre about Mace Blackhail's mean-spirited dogs, "They're a malevolence, Jebb. They'll watch and wait, and then they'll bite you right on the knuckle so you drop the lock and they can escape."

That was how the searching thing seemed to Effie: a waiting malevolence. For as long as she could remember, right the way back to being a toddie when Drey and Raif would toss her, squealing and happy, from one to the other, she had believed that something was trying to find her. No one knew this—though Raif might have guessed something, for he was always extra protective whenever he took her outside.

What this thing might be, what it wanted, if it really existed or was just a thought that had got stuck in her mind, like a splinter, she did not know. All she knew for certain was that the feeling was strongest when she stood on open ground. Hollows, glades, even river channels that were lined with trees were preferable to high places and open places where Effie Sevrance might be exposed.

Things had got a lot better since she'd left the roundhouse. Poor Raina, she had thought to send Effie to a better life at Dregg. It hadn't worked out that way at all, but strangely enough it had still worked out. Effie knew that when Raina looked at her she'd seen a child who was too quiet and solitary, too interested in the Hailstone and the guidehouse and the dark, damp spaces beneath the roundhouse. After the trouble with the Shankshound being burned and Effie being accused of being a witch, Raina had feared that Effie would never be able to live a normal life at Blackhail and had sent her off to live with relatives at Dregg. Raina had hoped that Dregg would turn Effie around; Effie knew this for a certainty because Raina had come right out and told her. "You'll be able to dance there and make friends. Learn to cook and sew and fight with swords if it pleases you. They have lovely gardens, Effie, with waterfalls and box hedges and roses. You need to dig in them, get some sun on the back of your neck and dirt between your fingers. Run out to the plunge pond and grab fish, roll on the grass, laugh, suck hay, play."

Effie felt bad when she thought of Raina's words, as if somehow by being here she had let Raina down. Sometimes she thought it would be a good thing to send Raina a note. Caught fish, rolled in the grass, made a friend. Still waiting to learn how to sew. That was the funny thing, you see, by getting waylaid, first by Clewis Reed and Druss Ganlow and then by Waker Stone and his father, she was changing in the very sort of ways that Raina had hoped to bring about. Effie Sevrance in a boat, camping, cooking, laughing with Chedd, wading into the river to look for mussels and skimmers: those things would make Raina glad.

Thinking about Raina made Effie's heart feel heavy. There was no way to let her know that things were all right… and no way to be certain that those words would hold true. As the first spits of rain landed on Effie's dress, Chedd did a victory wave from the top of the cliff.He was shooting and holding something up, but she couldn't make out what he was saying. Standig, she waved back. On the shore, Waker had finished cleaning the trout and was wrapping the fillets in dock leaves to keep them fresh until tonight. Waker s father had risen and was flipping the boat. Off soon then, Effie concluded. Another day on the river heading east.