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“I could ask the dedicates at the Air Teot to her feet and tucked the covered nest into the corner of her elbow
Looking down at his student, Niko grinned “Actually, try Rosethorn She often finds nestlings in her garden She’s even raised a few”
Tris stared at him She was terrified of Rosethorn The auburn-haired woue and a quick temper
“Do you want to be running to the Air dormitory every hour? Rosethorn will knohat to do I still doubt it will live—”
“He”
“Tris, no one will be able to tell until it’s ready to mate what sex it is”
“Then it ht as well be a he as an it,” she told his Shes and hes are alive”
“Oh, very well I haven’t ti to save it—him—”
“I do” Tris gulped, thinking of what lay ahead “I hope Rosethorn will help me”
“She will She likes birds o, then You need to feed and settle hio to Pirate’s Point”
Steadying her new charge with her free hand, Tris followed Niko down the stairs
3
If Tris had looked across the thousand feet of water that separated the island from the land, she would have seen three people on the rocky slope below Winding Circle’s walls One of thehtest brown cotton breeches and shirt, with a cri band around her left arm With her, in the red habit of a Fire dedicate, was her teacher, the se Frostpine, and his white-clad novice, Kirel
Frostpine was black like Daja, his skin a few shades darker than hers What hair he still possessed grew in a lion’s mane around a shiny bald crown; his beard sprouted wildly from his chin The sleeves of his habit were rolled up and secured with ties, revealing a pair of ar hands Kirel was half a head taller, white-skinned and blue-eyed, with long, fair hair Big-bellied and heavy-ared in ar across his back Before they had left the cottage, Daja had made sure Kirel was slathered with oint in the sun; a bottle of the stuff was in one of the baskets on the ht with them
“Take off your shoes, and get on your hands and knees,” Frostpine told her “The round, the better”
She thought he was crazy, but she obeyed, placing her sandals to the side Out here, the sun beat down like a hah that the drops tickled as they rolled down her cheeks and back
For aboat at the corner of her eye, off Crescent Island When she took a quick glance, there was nothing to be seen
“Re lumps of different metal under cloth?” he asked
Daja nodded “You uess as under the cloths, and I knehat ic”
Thenow Search under you for any trace of metal Not raw metal, but metal that’s been handled, and worked”
Sweat dripped into the dirt from her face “It’s too hot”
“Too hot?” he cried, white teeth flashing in a broad grin “Child, we are black! Black people are made for heat, to thrive in it—just as pallid boys like Kirel are made for snow and frost”
Kirel halted He had been walking a hundred yards away, holding a longrod out in front of him “I hate snow,” he retorted calmly “And if you weren’t crazy, Frostpine, you’d hate this weather asup, he tied back his hair with the braids that hung on either side of his face
Daja covered her grin with her hand She loved working with these two They were as relaxed and cheerful as the ot it done
Frostpine shook his head “Shurri and Hakoi,” he od of fire, “defend ive it a try, Daja”
With a nod, she put her hands pal to smell metal helped her to find it, so she sniffed deeply Was that a trace of …?
She inhaled again and yelped as the scents of copper, iron, silver, and gold flooded her nose Eyes watering, she sneezed and kept sneezing A hand gently pushed her aside; a handkerchief was tucked into her fingers Threeher wonder if it was possible to suffocate while sneezing
The earth quivered under her, then shifted Her throat closed with terror: earthquake! Her sneezes halted abruptly as she thrust herself backward The last shake had been just ten days ago Were they about to get another?
S her eyes, she saw Frostpine standing where she had knelt His arround He shook theh a screen Below hiently, in the same motion
Daja sighed with relief It wasn’t a fresh quake or treround The dirt began to take on a strange, ers into the earth
“Will you get that corner?” he asked, pointing to the edge of the patterned dirt “It’s a wire net”
Going to the spot he’d indicated, she dug her fingers down about an inch, until they passed through a metal web “Got it,” she told him
“When I count to three One—two—three”
They dragged the net fro and four feet wide Daja blinked The net was a shimmer of the metals she’d smelled, twined into fine wires and knotted like cord At half of the spots where the wire threads ers as if made of water
“What on earth is it for?” she demanded
Kirel walked over to the three or four s like this”
“Has either of you wondered why, in the last four hundred years, no pirates have ever attacked Winding Circle?” asked Frostpine
“I am—I was a Trader” Daja sed hard She’d almost said “I am a Trader,” but that part of her life was over “We didn’t think about how kaq could or couldn’t defend the the word kaq Like many words the Traders used to describe non-Traders, it was not flattering
“I lived in north Lairan,” added Kirel “We didn’t know anyone could fight in ships” He grinned and winked at Daja
“Time was this net covered the entire bluff, froht, where the protective wall stretched from Bit to the cliff—”to where the Emel River empties into the sea There’s more in the earth in front of the walls, too, aCircle Whenever the Dedicate Council thought there ht be pirates or land-raiders in the area, they woke the spell-net like this” The man hummed a weird tune