This is an excerpt from River Dragon, Book 5 in the Ari Ara Series.
You can get River Dragon through our Community Publishing Campaign.
Ari Ara rubbed her eyes and stared out the crosshatch windows of the ship. The morning had crawled by while she studied. The dense river ports had given way to smaller villages. Fish weirs dotted the reeds in the shallows. Large swaths of water-loving grains swayed on the flatlands, nourished with rich minerals from the annual floods. On a brilliant blue day such as this, entire villages poured into the wetland fields to stand ankle deep in the muddy silt, planting slender stalks of seedlings. Along the raised berms between the fields, a group of children ran and shrieked with laughter as they tugged at the strings of a kite.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
A persistent sound at the windows broke her reverie. She frowned as her eyes struggled to focus on the glass.
Tap. Tap-tap.
Ari Ara rose, scanning for a bird or a borer beetle or something that could make such a distracting tapping noise. She saw nothing. Baffled, she opened the window and stuck her head out. A tiny, hard object smacked her head.
“Ouch!”
“Whoops! Sorry.”
Finn’s voice hissed out a laughter-lined apology from above her. She craned upwards. He was hanging over the rail on the upper deck, grinning.
“You’ve had your head in that book all day,” he pointed out, tossing a toasted hazelnut at her. “Take a break.”
Ari Ara caught the nut and popped it in her mouth.
“Can’t,” she answered as she ate. Her hand flew up to cover her mouth. A queen didn’t eat like a cud-chewing cow, after all. “It’s not a long journey to the Sister River. I’ve got a lot to learn before then.”
Finn flung another hazelnut toward her, half in jest, half in annoyance. At this rate, they’d never spend any time together. Maybe he should just go back home.
“Too bad,” he told her with a shrug. “I thought of a game you’d like. It involves the Way Between.”
A gleam of mischief shone in his eyes.
“What’s this game?” she asked, enjoying the way the sunlight stranded through his curls.
“Search for the Lost Heir.”
Ari Ara burst out laughing. All the orphans knew that game, hiding while a seeker tried to find them. She’d played with the children at the monastery back before anyone – including her – even suspected she was the heir.
“Ah, but in this version,” Finn cajoled, the corner of his smile folding, “you, the real Lost Heir, use the Way Between to explore the ship before the Great Lady – ”
“ – or Shulen – ”
“Right, or Shulen, catches us and sends you back to that boring old book.”
It was a boring book, Ari Ara agreed. She waffled. Then shook her head.
“Brinelle will yell at me,” she warned, even as her resolve wavered.
“Not if you win,” Finn said with a wink.
Ari Ara’s laughter pealed. A grin slipped across her face. She slung her leg through the window frame. She’d be back before anyone noticed. Tucking her feet on the sill, clinging to the inside of the frame with one hand, she stretched upwards. Finn hooked his leg over the thick rail and around the vertical rungs. Leaning precariously, he clasped Ari Ara’s outstretched hand and heaved her up. Scrambling her feet up, Ari Ara pulled herself onto the top deck and crouched next to Finn. The captain stood by the round wheel, eyes fixed on the watercourse ahead. Finn pointed to the rowboat. Waiting until the captain squinted into the western sun, they crept behind its bulk. From there, they darted down the short flight of stairs to the main deck and hid in back of a stack of barrels.
“The first challenge is to cross to the stairs to the lower decks,” Finn told her in a whisper.
She peered through the narrow gap between the barrels. Across the bustling deck, the bulkhead to the lower decks had been propped open in the fair weather. A dozen crew members and passengers moved about their tasks. Finn could saunter past them whistling, but if they spotted Ari Ara, she’d be sent straight back to her studies. She rolled her shoulders and took a deep breath, settling into the taut focus of the Fanten when they did not wish to be seen. Her eyes studied the motions of the deck, the rhythm of gestures, the patterns of motions, the map of footsteps through errands and chores. With the soft tension of a stalking cat, Ari Ara dropped into the Way Between. She waited one breath. Two. Her eyes flicked east. A flock of marsh geese rose from the bank. Their raucous honking drew gazes. Ari Ara slipped out from behind the barrel.
Scarcely daring to breathe, Finn watched her turn, light as wind, delicate as snow, as unstoppable as water. She took three steps while everyone’s eyes tracked the flight of the brilliant, green-chested geese. She revolved around the back of a sailor as he turned back to his task. She slipped backward between a pair of her aunt’s servants as they parted ways. The mainsail mast blocked her from the view of the boatswain. The whoomph of the sail catching wind hid her from the cabin boy’s gaze in the crow’s nest. A crew member bent to coil rope; she darted behind her. Ari Ara moved between the backs of heads, distracted eyes, and turned gazes. She slid through the hidden space that threaded between tasks and duties, habits and gestures, circumstances and the unexpected. With a triumphant grin, she reached the bulkhead and dropped down into the shadowed hold, tossing a wink at Finn over her shoulder.
__________________
This is an excerpt from River Dragon, Book 5 in the Ari Ara Series.
You can get River Dragon through our Community Publishing Campaign.