Read Fell (The Sight 2) for Free Online

saw him just now, lurking about near the end of the farm again.”
    Malduk scowled. They both hated Bogdan, because he had a claim on part of their land, while he and Malduk were always arguing furiously about rumours that Malduk had eyes for his wife.
    “I’ll fix him one day,” said Malduk angrily.
    But Ranna was thinking of Alina again. “More than just any Saxon though,” she said sourly, “if that parchment in the chest means what I think it means. How could you take such a risk with the likes of them?”
    Malduk’s dark eyes flickered. The suspicion of who the girl really was had begun to haunt Malduk’s mind. It was hinted at in the parchment he had found on the soldier seven years before, when he had stumbled on Alina in the snow. He had sometimes hoped that he might use it one day to make himself and Ranna a real fortune, yet with that greedy hope had come a terrible fear of the man who had written it, and memories of something the parchment had said. He could never let it be discovered who she really was, or their part in her survival.
    Suddenly there was a hiss from Ranna. She was staring in horror at the wooden chest. She hadn’t noticed it before, but now she could see the parchment poking from the lid.
    “Look, Malduk. The letter.”
    “What the devil?” cried her husband, and the old shepherd began fumbling in his jerkin. “The key, Ranna. It’s gone.”
    Ranna hurried into the kitchen and started looking frantically amongst the bowls where she had found the herbs. At last she pulled out another key, exactly like the one Mia had in her pocket, although covered in dust, and handed it to her husband. Malduk put Alina’s knife on the milking stool, thrust the key into the lock, turned it, and threw back the lid. He snatched up the parchment from a pile of threadbare linen.
    It was the letter, along with a bag of gold, he had discovered on the sodiers dead body, lying next to his dead horse, with Alina nearby unconscious. The letter Mia had seen that very morning, when she had found the key on the ground outside the hovel and opened the chest in secret.
    After Malduk had first found Alina, and her shock had begun to wear off, she had sometimes asked the couple what was inside the chest, but she had long since lost interest, and so the old couple had almost forgotten to worry about it. But for a girl of Mia’s age, it had held irresistible secrets.
    “Someone’s opened it and looked, all right,” growled Malduk, glaring at the paper. It was covered in writing and at the top was a red crest, finely drawn, showing an eagle with open wings just like the mark on Alina’s arm. It had already convinced little Mia that the parchment was something terribly important. Mia couldn’t read, of course, but she had recognised the mark immediately.
    “Alina must have stolen your key and looked inside,” said Ranna.
    “And she acted very odd when I came in. Perhaps she meant to return the key later.”
    “Wicked sprite. Do you think she could read it?”
    The shepherd wondered to himself.
    “Perhaps. A girl like her may have learned Latin letters with the monks.”
    “Then she knows,” hissed Ranna, looking truly terrified now.
    “Maybe she didn’t understand what it really means,” said Malduk doubtfully, “or realise that it speaks of her.”
    “And maybe she did. It may not name her, but she’d recognise the crest. Maybe that’s why she was talking to Vladeran’s men.”
    The old couple stood there in the flickering shadows, and both were shaking terribly with the revelation.
    “What are you thinking, wife?” said Malduk, after a while. He knew his wife was much brighter than he.
    “I’m thinking how vulnerable the girl is,” answered Ranna. “She’s often alone with the sheep on the mountain, ain’t she, and with wolves prowling and the snow coming thicker and thicker, who knows what might befall a helpless shepherd boy out there? They’ll only say the fairies took Alin back