Wind Over Bone: The Estralony Cycle #2 (Young Adult Fantasy Romance) by E. D. Ebeling

lock chambermaids in his room anymore. It was me did that.” (“It’s because he wants Vanli to share,” said Leva.)
    The group teased Sarid in a benevolent way, avoiding the subject of her pedigree, calling her Savvel’s nanny and Hada Vanada (‘form over function’ in Northern Lorilan).
    Savvel was less benevolent than Mari.
    Yoffin would fetch her when his master was feeling out-of-sorts—a bad mood could easily turn into a bout of madness––and Sarid would go for Rischa’s sake.
    “ Sarid is not an attractive name,” Savvel declared one evening.
    “ Why should you care?” she said.
    “ Why should I have to say such an ugly name?”
    “ True, sir,” said Yoffin, who was playing blind-the-traitor in the corner with the real Gurd. “I get a cramp in my belly every time I say ‘Savvel.’ Sounds like a boil, or an arsehole. And Master just makes it worse.”
    Gurd bent over, laughing and snorting, and upset the little knots of wood on the game board. “Don’t ‘Sarid’ have a short-name ?” she said. She was Rileldine, and did look a little like Sarid, with her blond curls and brown eyes. “‘Ida’ I think it is. I’m afraid not much can be done with Savvel, though, sir. You can always scrap it, like Rischa did.”
    “ Ha!” said Savvel. “Bless my mother for not crushing me with a monument like Gavorian .”
    He was in an unusually good mood that day.
    Some days he was despondent, responding only to a physical prod, and some days he was sunk so deep in his black moods he considered Sarid’s every move an offense. Some days he was terrified and jumped at the bark of a dog. The worst days for Sarid were the sad ones.
    “ I’m horrible,” he said once. “I’m sorry for it.” He was sitting on the floor in a patch of sunlight, eyes glowing. He looked awfully like his brother.
    “ Stop looking into the sun,” she said. And then she said, “You’re the real Savvel.”
    “ The other forty-five sides of me might disagree.” He drew his hair over his eyes. All she could see was his mouth. “And they’ve all been perfect beasts haven’t they?”
    She looked away and fiddled with the pen she was holding, and said finally, “You’d be too sensitive without them, I think.”
    She began to pity him, more than fear him. His visions were unpredictable and always strange––colonnades at the bottom of a lake; swamps full of burning cypresses; a ruined tower sticking out from a forest of gibbets; a great room overgrown with a briar bush. All crawling with a soft, underground malevolence. Nothing compared to Yule’s Eve. She wondered if perhaps the dreams grew worse at the dark of the year.
    But she couldn’t bear thinking about them for long––why the hallucinations happened, and how she might stop or temper them––and so she didn’t. She just led him out of them when she could, and her head got muzzier every time it happened.
     
    ***
     
    One late, golden afternoon Sarid was walking along the lakeshore with Gryka. It was early spring, and she dragged a stick through the water, stirring the leaves at the bottom. A heady smell came up and made her think of autumn. The sun was out, warming the air and rotting the ice; and she saw three people––two boys at the lake’s edge and one girl venturing away from them, stepping over the ice, which stretched to the shore right there. The girl, in Mari’s white coat, turned carefully on the ice, saw Sarid, and waved.
    “You’re stupid,” called Sarid.
    “ I’m brave,” said Mari. “The boys are too craven to join me.”
    “ I’m comfortable where I am,” said one.
    “ I can’t swim,” said the other, and Gryka bounded over and jumped on him, because it was Rischa. He was almost as tall as Gryka, stretched out but not filled in. His shoulder blades poked through his shirt, sharp like plowshares.
    “ I don’t think you’d sink very far,” said Sarid, walking up to them, nettled that the dog had recognized him before she