Tinder Stricken Read Online Free

wait to snap while cutting her morning yams.
    Gita said nothing out loud, just kept up her
smirking convoy of clever thoughts while she watched ahead. These
fallows would be ready for replanting next year: bamboo stood
taller than Esha did, its young leaves rattling in the wind.
Carmine beetles crawled knee-high pine saplings, searching for
magic-laden resin that wasn’t flowing yet. Movement snagged Esha's
eye — but it was only a lone gwara, rolling through the grass in a
mindless, seeking pattern.
    “What about those aftershocks,” Gita said
with a flat voice and a monkey's wry smile. “The clerk is good to
warn us about those. Knowledgeable as he is about the mountain's
soil.”
    It was a little absurd. Carrying a
permission form in her pocket, Esha was free in this moment; the
tiers of human birthright were a smoky, distant thing. “And what does a clerk know about dealing with the earth?” she obliged
Gita.
    “Plenty! He must struggle mightily to keep
his inkwell upright during an earthquake.”
    “You think so?”
    “Well, that's more lifting than a clerk
usually does.” She peered sidelong at Esha. “Isn't it?”
    Esha was the only one of the farming women
who had seen the gloried heights of the mountain, and the lavish
homes that looked more like temples, and the lungta showering down
like petals from heavens' blooms. The taste of her smile changed.
Only Gita was allowed to ask about these bitter memories.
    “Gita Of The Fields,” Esha said firm, “mind
your tongue and honour your betters. Clerks transport more tonnes
of useless paper forms than you could ever know.”
    “Yaah,” Gita cried, “I thought you were
serious!”
    “They're stronger than yaks, these
clerks.”
    “Esha!” One of Gita's flailing hands found
Esha's, and she squeezed it brief and fond.
    “Alright, I'll speak truth now,” Esha
laughed. “Clerks are in the same caste as earthreaders, so they're
informed of an earthquake an hour before anyone else. But that's
all.”
    “There aren't any earthreaders on Yam
Plateau. Why would a scholar come this far down the mountain?”
    Esha waved the question away. “They
wouldn't: they'd send a messenger. Fah. Tell me something fresher,
sister — where did you see the phoenix? You did actually see
one, didn't you?”
    “It was here, right here!”
    They walked from bamboo thicket to gumgrass
field, the knee-high stalks sticking to Esha and Gita's homespun
clothes. Something delicate grew among the resinous undergrowth —
one herb sprout with pale, bent leaves — and Esha took care not to
step on something so potentially precious.
    “But the bird didn't seem to like anything
it found. I saw it moving edgeward, so I think we'll find it
there.” Gita slowed her pace, placing her sandals careful and
silent as they rounded a thicket of bamboo. Her hand slipped into
her satchel for a throwing stone. “This is where I saw the bird
before. Scratching for seeds, I think.”
    The winds blew stronger with every step, and
the flag-strung fence crept into view — bamboo rails with
white-and-orange striped flags too bold to ignore. Beyond there,
the lee side of Tselaya Mountain fell away and there was only empty
sky. A bird would surely feel safe here, so close to the sky,
perched on the edge of a human-owned plateau. Esha combed her gaze
over the surroundings, too — searching for red imperial guards as
much as red feathers.
    She followed Gita around a head-high stand
of bamboo — and suddenly, Gita stopped, throwing an arm out to bar
Esha’s way.
    “Over there,” she whispered. She reached
into her satchel and wrapped a fist around a second stone.
“Scratching at the dirt.”
    “You think you can strike it in one try?”
Gita was the better shot of the two of them: she could have been an
archer if she had been born to a better caste.
    “Yes, just go around and flush it out.
Toward me.”
    After a heartbeat of hesitation, Esha bent,
to grip some gumgrass and yank it up roots and