River Secrets

by Shannon Hale

  Dasha batted her eyelashes in mock diffidence. “I would need a personal guard, of course.”

  “It’d be best if your guard was a fellow who knows Bay­ern pretty well.”

  “We could spend summer and autumn in Bayern, winter and spring in Tira.”

  “Home in time for the tangerine blossoms,” said Razo. “Home?”

  He had meant Tira. He smiled again. She sat facing him, her hand on his knee, her eyes holding his gaze. He felt no need to look away.

  “Razo, don’t worry that you are not of a noble family.”

  “I wasn’t. Unless you were.”

  “It might be a concern for my father, but he may assume, as I did, that you were chosen for the ambassador’s party because of your status in Bayern.” She paused. “Will it be a problem in your country? Would a marr … uh, you know, a close relationship between such persons as, say, you and me, would it be forbidden?”

  Razo had to smile at Dasha, suddenly turned shy.

  “I don’t think so. At least, our king, Geric, he married my friend Isi, who was just an animal worker like me.”

  Dasha grinned in delight. “Your king married a commoner?”

  “Well, I guess Isi was in fact a princess of Kildenree, but when I knew her she wasn’t a princess at all, not until af­ter… Well, it’s a good, long story.”

  “Keep rowing, Lord Razo,” said Dasha. “I’m eager to hear about the princess who wasn’t a princess and how she met Razo of the Forest.”

  So he began the tale, how he’d left the Forest to work as a sheep keeper in the city, and in his second year there, he met the new goose girl, a quiet girl who always hid her hair.

  Razo dug the oars deeper and drew them back. The pull felt good, and he thought he could keep rowing forever, perhaps even to the ocean. The water was smooth under them, Dasha was listening with that forgotten smile her lips always kept at the ready. She edged closer so she could place both her hands on his knees, her face open to him. Razo’s heart stirred. He wanted to touch her again, but she wanted him to keep talking.

  And that was all right for now. Telling his story felt like the next closest thing to giving her a kiss.

  Acknowledgments

  Thanks to the community at slinging.org for looking over the slinging passages and steering me clear of mistakes; all the sheroes at sheroescentral.com for helping me think through the title; Holly Black and Tiffany Trent for inspired input; Victoria Wells Arms, of course, who is a radiant example of editorial greatness and makes me look better than I actually do (though my husband argues here that I look pretty good); speaking of my husband, Dean, who takes such good care of his crazy writer wife, while being the greatest papa this world over; speaking of again, my own marvelous papa, Wally Bryner, who taught me how to cast a lure and shoot a bow and feel confident; the tremendous Jeff Bryner, who inspired some of the best bits of Razo; Amy Lu Jameson, for suggesting that a Razo book would be welcome; and the coolest kid in the world, Max, who took great naps.

  A note about River Secrets from

  SHANNON HALE

  Ah, Razo. Never have I had such a character as Razo. Some characters give you a landslide of trouble trying to figure out, some sprout from the ground fully clothed and ready to play. Razo was the latter. He appeared out of nowhere in The Goose Girl. From the beginning his voice was so distinct to me, I could almost hear him speaking. There was a scene in Goose Girl where Razo had some dialogue, but in a later rewrite I had to take him out of the scene, so I attributed the dialogue to someone else. Ever since, that scene has bothered me because Razo’s voice is so unique to my ears—clearly that’s Razo speaking those lines, but he’s not in the room!

  Razo isn’t even mentioned in my original outline for Enna Burning. About halfway through the first draft he showed up unexpectedly, insisting himself into the story until he became a central character. Enna was a really difficult book for me to write, but the Razo bits were fun. I knew what Razo would say and do, I understood his relationship with Enna and Finn from the beginning, so his parts just flowed. He was like an old, comfortable friend who helped me get through the telling of that story.

  After Enna, I didn’t think I’d write another Bayern book at all, and yet here it is. And who is the main character? Razo, of course, that wily, sneaky kid. He got his own book out of me, the rascal. By far the greatest joy in writing River Secrets was spending that time with Razo, seeing the world from his point of view, hearing the things he’d say, laughing at him and with him.

  And he’s done it again. At this writing I’m working on a fourth Bayern book. The main character is Rin, Razo’s little sister, and in an early draft I mourned that Razo just didn’t fit into the plot. He’d make a brief appearance near the beginning but would be left behind. And guess what? You got it—he’s weaseled his way into a bigger role yet again. Bless him.

  I love all the characters in Bayern, good and bad, but if I had to pick just one to hang out with one day, it would have to be Razo. And maybe he’d teach me how to sling. And then I could take him to an all-you-can-eat buffet. And we’d chat. And laugh. Maybe I should give him a ring. I sure love that boy.

  From

  SHANNON HALE

  During the process of writing River Secrets, I wanted to be closer to Dasha, to make sure I understood her. I chose a scene—the end of Chapter 18 and beginning of 19—and wrote it from Dasha’s point of view. This was a writing exercise only, never meant to be part of the finished book. It’s a rough scene, never edited, but I thought you might enjoy it anyway.

  Dasha’s Chapter

  Dasha was fingering a peculiar silver brooch when she spotted that sneak, Tumas. Just the sight of him made her hands feel dirty. She left the shop, vaguely aware of the merchant shouting lower prices at her back, and ran after him.

  The streets outside the market hushed; the day stilled. In the solitude, she was aware of the thickness of the air. She parted her lips and breathed in, tasting water on her tongue. Everything was so heavy. The clouds were crowded, their presence pushed down on her. The hairs on her arms tingled, suggesting that the sky was full of lightning unspent.

  She glared up. “I am not playing this game.”

  Clouds jostled each other, eager to unload their weight. She felt that familiar pull on her skin. All she would have to do is feel it, close her eyes and feel the clouds release, the rain break apart, the world sigh in relief, and she knew it would happen. The desire tugged on the corner of her mouth like a hopeful smile, but her belly felt black and heavy. Again, the image of her grandfather pulsed behind her eyes—the defeat on his face, his skin wet, his body leaning into the river. It was a sight so familiar in memory, it was like the smell of home. A home where she did not want to stay.

  “I won’t do it,” she whispered.

  She ripped her attention away from air and sky and realized that Tumas was no longer in sight. She kept wandering, hoping to find him. Ever since the day she saw him climbing a tree to peer in Enna’s window, she had kept watch on him. Why had he been spying on Enna? Did he guess that she was the fire-witch?

  Dasha harbored a mad, hopeful fancy that once she knew what Tumas was up to, she could go to Enna and tell her, that Enna would be grateful to Dasha for looking out for her, that they would become friends, and Enna would understand about the water and the desire and offer a cure. … Dasha smiled sheepishly. It was a lovely fantasy, but it crackled and fell away under scrutiny. Enna would, naturally, be suspicious. No friendship was likely to spring up between them. Relations between Bayern and Tira felt like holding a glass pane above her head, balanced on her fingertips, her arms tiring. But perhaps she could talk to that boy Razo. …

  Then, suddenly, there he was, standing over something dark. The day dimmed as though taking a long blink. He was gaping down at a body. A burned body. He pushed it to the bank and sent it into the river, mumbling something to himself. Curious to hear, Dasha stepped closer.

  Razo looked up, and the expression on his face
pierced her—shock, pain, fear. Didn’t he recognize her?

  “Razo,” she said, so that he might hear her voice and remember that she was a friend. But his eyes were crazed.

  “It was you,” he said, stepping away.

  He was backing up, toward the river. She should have reached out to stop him, but for an instant his movement made sense to her; she herself felt drawn toward water—it seemed only natural. It was not until his body tumbled over the edge that she realized it had been a mistake.

  The wall beneath her was sheer, no hand- or footholds, and the current was pulling him hard toward the sea. She ran alongside.

  “Swim that way!” She pointed to the other bank, where tiled steps led out of the water. “You can climb up there! Swim away from me!”

  Razo was thrashing madly, churning water, his neck bent back, his head up and pleading for air. A wave struck his face, and he disappeared, leaving a trail of bubbles.

  “No, no, no,” Dasha breathed, running, watching for him to come back.

  He can’t swim. The thought slapped the hesitation out of her, and her fear of the threat water promised her lifted as the very real threat of his immediate death weighed down.

  From so far away, her link to the river was weak, connected only by the invisible water that hung in the air. She needed direct contact to communicate this need to the river, so she ran off the edge, a final thrust from her feet pitching her into a dive.

  The impact shoved away her sense of her bodily self. She floated underwater, dazzled by the touch of so much water. Its song filled her ears and its sense spoke of tiled banks and garbage wood, the skeleton of a dog in its depths, spots where warmth gathered and other plunges of raw cold, down where darkness sparked with drops of sunlight and up where the surface undulated under strokes of air—the river’s touch exhaling a thousand images. Dasha pled with it to speak to her of a boy inside the river, air leaving his lips, body falling down.

  Then she found him. Her eyes closed, and she could see the image of him in her mind, carried to her by the water. She was too far to touch him, but the water touched all.

  Moving water was like dreaming. When she was only half asleep and pierced with slivers of dreams, she could change the story they told, move herself into a different story, a nicer one, a dream story where she wanted to stay. Water was like a dream—not something she could hold, not easily changed like clay in her hands. She had to will it, want it, see it before it would obey her. And even then, it was a slippery thing to hold.

  Dasha kicked and rose upward, all the while keeping with her the picture of Razo as he sank down, his eyes open. She held that thought fiercely and imagined him now head up, body rising. Her face broke through to cold air. He was near the surface now, too. She forced herself to feel the water roiling beneath him, lifting him, snaking beneath his body, carrying him across the current. Moments after she felt it, she was relieved to see it happen, the water complying with her vision. Dasha swam behind him, watching the ripples of water spray around his body. She did not ask the water to carry her. Just the thought of how much she had already done filled her with a dark panic that threatened to weigh her like a stone. She had to work with the water to save Razo, but she would make as little contact with it as possible. Already she was feeling a strange, lovely tingling in her fingertips and toes, almost as though the tips of her were in danger of being lost, the river taking her into itself, forgetting where Dasha ended and water began. It was a gorgeous sensation, and one that frightened her, shooting an unearthly cold through the insides of her bones.

  Ahead of her, Razo reached the bank and pulled himself out. Dasha was a few laps behind.

  She fluttered her legs one last time underwater, feeling as light as a butterfly, as sleek as a snake. She kicked herself out of the water and onto the bank, and the sense of her body returned, as heavy as the world.

  Razo said something to her, but she did not hear it. Though in the hard air now, her head still felt underwater, sound softened through a river. Her feet to ankles hung in the water, and against her skin she heard the river muttering in its swift, cold voice, passing on images of all that touched its banks, all that passed over its surface or lay in its depths, ruffled by the pull of the current like leaves are in a wind. How easy it would be just to fall back in, how lovely not to have to struggle anymore on dry land.

  Her awareness of the clouds pulled at her skin, dragging her gaze up from the water. The dampness in the air tickled her face and arms with the knowledge that the gravid sky was groaning with the weight of rain. She knew lightning would flicker in the west the moment before it flashed. Her soul felt pierced, and she remembered that she was fighting something. She remembered Grandfather. She had promised the flowers blooming around his grave that she would never succumb to what had taken him, to the lies of solidarity the water gibbered. She’d had to save Razo, but she would not toy with that curse anymore. She would live.

  Razo was pulling her to her feet, and she followed, tearing herself from the river. Thunder laughed at her, and she glared up.

  I won’t play. I am done.

  Read on for a Sneak Peek of the Next

  Book of Bayern

  Forest Born

  Chapter 1

  Rin sat on the Forest floor, covered her face with her arms, and tried to exhale away the tight feeling in her chest. Even with her eyes closed, she could feel the trees leaning in, their shadows thick as wool. The whole world felt crowded, hostile, too dense to breathe. It was summer, but she shook.

  “Rin! Rinna!”

  She straightened up as her nephew Incher came hurtling her way. He stopped running when he saw her, his dirty face wrinkling in awkward confusion.

  “What’re you doing, Rin? You crying?”

  Rin shook her head, then wiped her eyes with the backs of her hands, just in case she was.

  “Well, Da wants a hand with the roofing,” he said, standing on his toes and twisting around as he spoke. “Said he’d give me first go at the stewpot tonight if I found you. And I found you. Want to watch me climb that tree?”

  “Later, all right?”

  Incher nodded and hopped away, expecting no more from his aunt. As soon as he was out of sight, she ran.

  She ran over dead pine needles that snapped underfoot and moss that hushed under her soft boots. She zigzagged and changed paths and bolted through sunny clearings and back into cool shade, and still she felt that itchy wrongness, that loud stillness that told her she was not home. All her life, if ever she was lonely or anxious or afraid, all she had to do was climb a tree and lay herself down, spine to branch, and let in the calm that all trees breathe out. But she had not sought that comfort in months. The pines, firs, and aspen that had been like extensions of her own family stood in woody silence now, as lifeless as tossed bones.

  Sometimes the anxious itch inside her made her want to keep running fast and far until she passed the last Forest tree, until the whole world was left behind; sometimes it made her want to curl up and disappear.

  When she got to the clearing of the Homestead, she rested her hands on her knees, waiting for her breathing to slow. There stood her ma’s house, one room built of wood, shutters wide open in the summer afternoon, fir boughs turning brown on the roof. Dotting the small clearing were five other houses, built by her big brothers for their own families. Everywhere, children ran. Rin had twenty-two nieces and nephews, several of them older than she.

  Happy shrieks pricked the air as a line of children fled an older child who was hooting like an owl. Two children were wrestling in the dirt while a third waited her turn. Three little girls sat on the ground weaving intricate crowns from green pine needles. When another boy tried to wrest a crown from one of their hands, one of the girls punched him in the jaw, sending him off yowling. The whole place thrummed with activity, the motion constant, the family like a huge beast with a thousand parts. Rin tried to smile at the scene, but it felt like lying.

  She shivered once, then looked
around for sign of a bright red headscarf. She might have been fifteen years old and nearly a woman, but just then, all she wanted was her mother.

  She spotted Ma across the clearing, carrying a sobbing grandchild with one arm while still gripping the long wooden spoon that was her near constant companion. Rin’s mother was nearly as wide as she was tall and looked sturdy enough to face down a root-ripping storm. She had a lot of dark hair that frizzed around her face, continually breaking free from her Forest woman’s headwrap, and a voice that somehow sounded warm and loving even as she berated everyone she passed.

  “Brun,” she called, pointing the wooden spoon at her eldest son as he chopped wood. “Your Lila there is making a ruckus that’ll scare the squirrels into winter. See to her or I will. Gren, don’t you knock over that pot I just filled if you want to live to supper!” As she passed behind her son Jef, who sat on the ground leaning back, his hat half over his eyes, she swatted him on the back of the head with her spoon. “Get up, you sack of bones. I didn’t raise you to nap like an overfed piglet. Look at you children—what pretty necklaces you made! Don’t go scratching each others’ eyeballs now. Tabi, let go of your brother! He’s not a branch to swing from.”

  Rin made herself Ma’s shadow, following her through the clearing and into the little house, waiting beside her as Ma hefted the sobbing grandchild higher on her hip and stirred the enormous pot hanging over the fire. Rin shuffled her feet. At the sound, Ma turned with a relieved smile.

  “Rin, there’s my girl, only sensible person for miles. Come stir the stew while I patch up Yuli’s knee. I can’t think what those children meant by—now wait just a minute.” Ma peered at Rin’s face. “What’s wrong?”

  Rin shook her head.

  Ma sat Yuli on the table and put a hand under Rin’s jaw. “You sure? You’ve been quiet lately—well…” She paused to laugh at her own joke. “Maybe it’s not so much the quiet as something inside the quiet.”