It was still grey and cold, with tiny flecks of pink.Ī Charter mark for light glowed there too, warm and golden in the stone. She let them spring open and stared up at the ceiling for a few minutes. As on every other morning, Lirael gave up trying to keep her eyes shut. Once she had thought of that, there was no hope for sleep. just the news of her death, a garbled message from the distant North that had arrived three days before Lirael's tenth birthday.
She had left when Lirael was five, without a word, without an explanation.
But Lirael's mother was long gone, taking the secret of Lirael's paternity with her. Not her face or her voice - just the touch of her cool hand. That touch was the only thing she remembered of her mother. She wanted to regain the feel of that hand on her brow. Lirael scrunched her eyes together more tightly and tried to go back to sleep. The bell sounded at the same time every day, calling the Clayr out of their beds to join the new day. All was silent, which meant that it must be long before the Waking Bell. She couldn't bear to think what life would be like if she were forced to go back to family chambers. Sometimes, in her nightmare-laced sleep, Lirael walked, talked, and wreaked havoc. It must have been a relatively good night. Her practice sword hung in its scabbard on the back of the door. The desk and chair still occupied the other corner. Her simple wardrobe of dressed pine was upright, the dull steel latch still closed. Lirael looked around the small chamber, but there were no signs of any other nocturnal damage. The pillowcase had been torn off in the course of some nightmare and now hung from her chair. It took her a second to realize that she'd clawed the sheet away and had been lying facedown on the coarsely woven mattress cover. The touch was no longer soft and loving, but rough and rasping. Then the dream shifted, and her forehead wrinkled. She felt herself smile, enjoying the touch. A gentle, soft touch, a cool hand upon her own fevered skin. All Rights Reserved.ĭaughter of the Clayr Chapter One An Ill-favored Birthdayĭeep within a dream, Lirael felt someone stroking her forehead. "When the Dead Do Walk, Seek Water's Run" Ellimere's Thoughts on the Education of Princes
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