DISCLAIMER: I do not own the Inheritance Cycle, Christopher Poalini does.
Chapter 2
As usual, Marina woke early. She had camped in a another, smaller clearing after completing a third of the journey back home. Through the heavy canopy of leaves above her, morning light streamed in and awoke her.
Only lifelong habit helped Marina roll out of the warmth of the bedroll and into the icy morning air. She dressed quickly, in boy's clothing, sheathing her hunting dagger at her hip and slinging her longbow over her back. The purple stone, she held in her hands again, and set off. On the way, she ate her breakfast – cheese and bread and an apple.
Marina was different from the other hunters in many ways. Unlike them, who viewed the Spine with fear, Marina looked at it with a mixture of respect and fascination. She was not so close-minded as to miss the raw beauty of the forest and the mountains, as did most.
So the huntress loped easily through her unofficial territory, reveling in the quiet beauty. Birds chirped and sang above her as just enough sunlight streamed in to illuminate the flowers and trees and the almost invisible path.
The large, brilliant stone in her hands seemed to shine with its own light, too.
As she walked, she let her mind wander.
As long as Marina could remember, she had lived with her uncle and cousin near Carvahall. They were not her closest family, and yet she viewed her uncle as a father and her cousin as a brother.
Her mother, she knew, had been named Selena, but that was really all she knew about her. Garrow had told her that almost fifteen years ago, Selena, dressed in the clothing of the upper class, had stumbled up to her brother, pregnant and alone. She had refused to answer to any of her family's questions, not about her clothes or about the father. When Marina had been born, Selena had pleaded for Garrow to raise her and name her Marina, and then she had left, never to be seen again.
Many nights, after she had been told the story, Marina would lay awake at night, staring unseeing up at the ceiling, hoping against hope the her mother or her father would come and take her back. She would imagine that her father was a rich, handsome nobleman, of course, perhaps having served in the army during his youth. Perhaps, she had a brother or a sister, too.
But no closer relatives came to take her away.
Marina had gotten used to the insulting silence. She had trained herself to think of her uncle and cousin as her only family, to not wonder if she had any other living relatives. What did it matter that her mother had dumped her at her brother's doorstep and just left?
At least Marina had proven herself useful, and not been a burden. Her talent with a bow and with a knife were considerable, better than anyone else's in the village. And her courage in the Spine had kept the small family warm and full many times, when the game that wasn't in the Spine was scarce.
Marina reached another acceptable clearing by nightfall. The night was velvety and misty, the moon full. Marina curled up with the stone cradled against her cheek.
The next day at midmorning, Marina reached the edge of the Spine. Smiling slightly to herself for no other reason than the fine day, she broke into a run, heading for Carvahall, to the butcher's shop to trade the stone for meat.