Читать книгу Red Sister онлайн | страница 80
‘Wuh-what?’ At the end of the row Ketti, the eldest of them, unhooded the lantern that sat beside her bed for anyone needing to make the trip to the Necessary in the dead of night.
Just below the rolled blanket where Nona’s head had lain a small black object stood proud of the bed. She blinked, trying to focus – the hilt of something? Close by, Clera rose groggily from her own bed. ‘Can’t be morning already?’ Her voice thick with sleep. A figure stood between them, revealed in the light of the unhooded lantern – Arabella Jotsis, her face a mask.
Nona took hold of the hilt – leather-bound, the pommel a ball of iron the size of an eye – and tugged. It took most of her strength to free the point from the boards, and when she saw the gleaming blade start to slide out from the slot it had put in her blankets she quickly covered it. Only Arabella noticed, her eyes moving from Nona’s hand on the hilt to Nona’s face as their eyes met.
‘Get back in bed! It’s the middle of the night.’ Ketti closed the lantern’s cowl until just a glow remained.
Arabella hurried towards Ketti and moments later left the room holding the lantern.
‘Shut the window. It’s cold in here.’ Clera from her bed, the words all running together. Nobody replied.
Nona lay back, pulling the blankets over her. It had grown cooler – the wind must have caught the window and pulled it wide – even so, if Clera called this cold then she had never known what it was to face the ice-wind, hungry and with only wattle walls for shelter.
She drew out the knife from under the covers. The blade reached for about two widths of her hand, narrow as two fingers, all of it cold steel. Nona could only think that Arabella must have stolen it from the stores at the training hall. The real question though, was had she meant to stab Nona to death or just to leave her a pointed warning? At the core of her something red and primal snarled at the blade’s challenge, demanding blood, demanding the weapon be returned with a hard lesson. Nona fought the impulse to go after Arabella. She could catch her before she reached the Necessary hunkering on the edge of the cliff. How would that encounter end? Nona with a sharp knife in her hand and blunt accusations in her mouth? Anger had its place, it was a weapon not to be neglected, but so did patience, and Nona decided that control lay in deciding which to use and when.