Summer Storm

Chapter 1

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Falen glanced up just in time to see the tree trunk lying across her path. Panic flashed through her body.

“Wait!” she cried.

Too late. Her horse gathered himself and jumped, sailing over the fallen tree. Falen lurched forward in the saddle, clinging on as they landed with a teeth-juddering impact on the other side. She yanked the reins and her horse skidded to a halt in a shower of mud, eyes wide, ears flat. Falen patted his sweaty neck.

“Sorry, Yrsa. My fault.”

Daydreaming again! With her thoughts fixed on her experiments, she’d not been looking where she was going. That had been close. Too close.

Yrsa stamped, chewing on the bit, unimpressed with his rider.

A gust of wind sent Falen’s hair swirling round her head. The trees shook, leaves fluttering into the air. Falen squinted at the sky. Clouds were gathering to the north, obscuring the mountains. It might be high summer but the weather could turn in an instant in the Sisters; a calm day transforming into a howling gale.

A frown creased Falen’s forehead. That storm looked nasty. She really ought to return to Variss. Any sensible person would turn her horse round and head for home. But then she’d miss the chance to take vital readings from her experiments.

And that was not an option.

Turning her back on the storm, she nudged Yrsa into a trot and continued up the trail.

Her father would be furious, of course. How many times had he lectured her about safety? You’re not to go riding alone, he’d say, wagging a finger in that annoying way of his. When you leave the city, you must tell me first, and take a guard with you.

Well, she’d broken both rules and expected another blazing row when she got back.

The path was one of many game trails crisscrossing the foothills of the Sisters. Although a long way from the tree-line and the real wilderness, Falen felt like she traveled the edge of the world. Nobody came up here. Even herdsmen avoided this place. The Sisters’ slopes were haunted, the tales said, and Black Seza was the worst of them.

Idiotic superstition, in Falen’s opinion.

She guided Yrsa into a clearing and dismounted. She saw Variss twinkling in the valley below. The sun shone on the city, making its turrets and towers sparkle like fresh snow. Variss. Queen of the North. Ancient, wild, beautiful. Falen’s home.

And her prison.

In the other direction Black Seza, the tallest and most feared of the Sisters, towered almost directly above the clearing. Black Seza’s sides were sheer, with no safe paths to her summit. The mountain’s craggy peak looked like a wizened face looking down at Falen. She shivered, goose bumps riding up her skin.

Pulling off the saddlebags and slinging them over her shoulder, she strode across the clearing to where she’d set up her weather experiments.

Arranged at intervals around the clearing stood several glass contraptions. Falen had named them stormglasses. They resembled teapots, with a sealed glass body and a spout open to the air. Each was filled with different levels of water.

Falen crouched and pulled a book from the saddlebag. The title read, A Scientific Treatise On Air Currents In The Southern Desert Regions by Tamwyn Tharly.

Falen remembered finding this book in the library. It had been a dull winter afternoon and she’d badgered the old librarian into letting her into the stacks, the area of the library where the oldest and most obscure texts were stored. She’d found this little gem.