The Fierce Reads Anthology(22)

Now you know what monsters once lurked in the woods near Duva, and if you ever meet a bear with a golden collar, you will be able to greet him by name. So shut the window tight and make sure the latch is fastened. Dark things have a way of slipping in through narrow spaces. Shall we have something good to eat?

Well then, come help me stir the pot.



Copyright (C) 2011 by Leigh Bardugo



copyright (C) 2011 by Anna & Elena Balbusso





From

Leigh Bardugo

DEBUT AUTHOR

Read on for a preview of





Shadow & Bone


On Sale June 2012 from Henry Holt Books for Young Readers





Shadow and Bone





Henry Holt and Company, LLC

Publishers since 1866

175 Fifth Avenue

New York, New York 10010

macteenbooks.com



Henry Holt? is a registered trademark of Henry Holt and Company, LLC.

Copyright ? 2012 by Leigh Bardugo

Map ? 2012 by Keith Thompson

All rights reserved.



Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Bardugo, Leigh.

Shadow and bone / Leigh Bardugo.—1st ed.

p. cm

Summary: Orphaned by the Border Wars, Alina Starkov is taken from obscurity and her only friend, Mal, to become the protégée of the mysterious Darkling, who trains her to join the magical elite in the belief that she is the Sun Summoner, who can destroy the monsters of the Fold.

ISBN 978-0-8050-9459-6 (hc)[1. Fantasy. 2. Magic—Fiction. 3. Ability—Fiction. 4. Monsters—Fiction. 5. Orphans—Fiction.] I. Title.

PZ7.B25024Sh 2012 [Fic]—dc23 2011034012





For my grandfather: Tell me some lies.





THE GRISHA




SOLDIERS OF THE SECOND ARMY MASTERS OF THE SMALL SCIENCE



CORPORALKI

(THE ORDER OF THE LIVING AND THE DEAD)

Heartrenders

Healers



ETHEREALKI

(THE ORDER OF SUMMONERS)

Squallers

Inferni

Tidemakers



MATERIALKI

(THE ORDER OF FABRIKATORS)

Durasts

Alkemi





Before




THE SERVANTS CALLED them malenchki, little ghosts, because they were the smallest and the youngest, and because they haunted the Duke’s house like giggling phantoms, darting in and out of rooms, hiding in cupboards to eavesdrop, sneaking into the kitchen to steal the last of the summer peaches.

The boy and the girl had arrived within weeks of each other, two more orphans of the border wars, dirty-faced refugees plucked from the rubble of distant towns and brought to the Duke’s estate to learn to read and write, and to learn a trade. The boy was short and stocky, shy but always smiling. The girl was different, and she knew it.

Huddled in the kitchen cupboard, listening to the grownups gossip, she heard the Duke’s housekeeper, Ana Kuya, say, “She’s an ugly little thing. No child should look like that. Pale and sour, like a glass of milk that’s turned.”

“And so skinny!” the cook replied. “Never finishes her supper.”

Crouched beside the girl, the boy turned to her and whispered, “Why don’t you eat?”

“Because everything she cooks tastes like mud.”

“Tastes fine to me.”

“You’ll eat anything.”

They bent their ears back to the crack in the cupboard doors.

A moment later the boy whispered, “I don’t think you’re ugly.”

“Shhhh!” the girl hissed. But hidden by the deep shadows of the cupboard, she smiled.



IN THE SUMMER, they endured long hours of chores followed by even longer hours of lessons in stifling classrooms. When the heat was at its worst, they escaped into the woods to hunt for birds’ nests or swim in the muddy little creek, or they would lie for hours in their meadow, watching the sun pass slowly overhead, speculating on where they would build their dairy farm and whether they would have two white cows or three. In the winter, the Duke left for his city house in Os Alta, and as the days grew shorter and colder, the teachers grew lax in their duties, preferring to sit by the fire and play cards or drink kvas. Bored and trapped indoors, the older children doled out more frequent beatings. So the boy and the girl hid in the disused rooms of the estate, putting on plays for the mice and trying to keep warm.

On the day the Grisha Examiners came, the boy and the girl were perched in the window seat of a dusty upstairs bedroom, hoping to catch a glimpse of the mail coach. Instead, they saw a sleigh, a troika pulled by three black horses, pass through the white stone gates onto the estate. They watched its silent progress through the snow to the Duke’s front door.

Three figures emerged in elegant fur hats and heavy wool kefta: one in crimson, one in darkest blue, and one in vibrant purple.

“Grisha!” the girl whispered.

“Quick!” said the boy.

In an instant, they had shaken off their shoes and were running silently down the hall, slipping through the empty music room and darting behind a column in the gallery that overlooked the sitting room where Ana Kuya liked to receive guests.