Read The Cloud Roads for Free Online

“Are you going to kill me, or just leave me up here?”
    “I thought neither.” Stone stepped away, turning to cross back over the roof. A heavy leather pack lay on the dirty paving, and a pile of broken branches and chunks of log. Stone must have had the pack stashed somewhere lower in the tower, and that casually spectacular shift and dive had been to retrieve it and the wood. “What did they give you?”
    “They said it was a poison that only works on Fell.” Moon followed him warily. He had met other shifters before. He had run into a group in Cient that could shift into big lupine predators; they had tried to eat him, too. He had never found or heard of any shifters who could fly. Except the Fell. But Stone wasn’t Fell. You didn’t think he was a shifter, either, he reminded himself. “I’m not a Fell.”
    Stone’s brows quirked. “I noticed.” He sat on his heels, breaking up the wood to lay a fire. He was barefoot, like Moon. “Poison for Fell? I’ve never heard of that before.”
    Moon eased himself down to sit a few paces away, wincing at the tug of pain in his back and shoulder. The battlement provided a little protection from the cold wind, but the thin fabric of his sweat-soaked clothes, fine for the warmer valley, was worse than inadequate here. If Stone didn’t kill him before the poison wore off—if the poison wore off... Brows knit, Moon looked down at his arms, still showing the ghost-pattern of scales just under the bronze tint of his skin. Oh, I get it now, he thought sourly. Just trying to help. Right.
    “Why did they stake you out?” Stone broke up twigs for tinder. “Catch you stealing their cattle?”
    Moon thought over possible replies, trying not to huddle in on himself against the wind. He could sit here and say nothing, but talking might distract Stone. He tried to answer, and had to clear his throat. “I was living with them. They found out what I was.”
    Stone flicked a look at him and held out the waterskin again. The slosh of the water inside made Moon’s dry throat burn. He gave in and, without taking his eyes off Stone, took a long drink, then coughed and wiped his mouth. The lukewarm water soothed his throat a little. He tied the bone cap back on and set it aside.
    Stone tried to light the fire. He shielded the tinder with larger pieces of wood, striking sparks off a set of flints, just like anyone else. Moon tried to reconcile this picture with the creature that had tossed the giant vargit into the Cordans. Frustrated curiosity getting the better of caution, he asked, “What are you?”
    Stone glanced at him from under skeptical brows. “Did you get hit on the head?” Moon didn’t respond, and after a moment Stone’s expression turned thoughtful. He said, “I’m a Raksura. So are you.”
    “I’m—” Moon started, then realized he had no way to finish that sentence. He had never known where he came from or what his people were called. And he speaks the language your mother taught you. Moon didn’t want to believe it. But if it was a ploy, it was a patently bizarre one. He’s trying to make me think he didn’t bring me up here to kill me, or... He had no idea. Moon settled for saying skeptically, “Then why are you so much bigger than me?”
    “I’m old.” Stone frowned at him, as if Moon was the one who sounded crazy. “What court are you from? Where’s your colony?”
    Moon debated a moment, weighing the tactic of implying that there were others who would come to his aid versus the possibility of being tortured to reveal their location. No, it wasn’t worth it. He admitted, “It was just my mother, and my brothers and sister. Dead, a long time ago.”
    Stone winced, and turned his attention back to the fire. Once the tinder and the smaller twigs had caught, he sat back, carefully feeding in broken branches. “This happened somewhere further east? Around the curve of the gulf of Abascene?”
    It had to be a guess. It was just a very good guess.