River of Secrets Read online

  Dedication

  For Rowan

  Map

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Map

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Prologue

  QUIETSHORE, A BLACK-NECKED CRANE, bobbed and soared on the currents of air that flowed over the peaks and valleys of the Bamboo Kingdom. His mate, Stillwater, touched her black wing tips to his as they flew.

  It would be so good to return to their nest in the gentle shallows of the great river. The long summer was coming to an end, and the northern shoreline would be the perfect place for them to roost during the harsh mountain winter.

  They followed the glittering stream of the river as it cut through the kingdom, over rapids and through thick forests, until finally Stillwater let out a gentle croak.

  “We’re almost there. Look, there’s the waterfall. The mossy rocks will be just around this bend.” She turned in the air, her keen eyes searching the banks for their nesting place. But as they turned the bend in the river, Quietshore looked down at the water and immediately knew something was wrong.

  “Where are the rocks?” he called.

  The nesting ground didn’t look at all the way he remembered it. He and Stillwater had spent some time after the great flood looking for the perfect place to build their new nest. When they had flown away in the early spring, they had left behind a gentle slope to a shallow pool surrounded by mossy rocks, perfect for trapping small fish and staying protected from the river current. But now there was a much sharper drop from the land to the edge of the river. . . .

  “Look!” Stillwater chirped, and went into a dive, landing on the mossy top of a high rock outcropping. Quietshore landed beside her and gasped. There on the top of the rock was their old nest: a comfortable circle of twigs, splintered bamboo, and moss. It took him a moment to understand. Why wasn’t it in the water? But then he realized that the nest hadn’t moved—the river had! “Quietshore,” Stillwater breathed. “The floodwaters are finally receding!”

  Quietshore hopped down the rocks toward the new edge of the river. Nearby, a gnarled tree that had been completely submerged now stuck up out of the water, dripping with algae. A thin bamboo sprout with a single bright green leaf was already growing out of the silt beside it. The sun shone down on it all, drying out the rocks and glittering on the surface of the river. Even the current seemed a little gentler than it had been. Other birds hopped curiously along the banks, pecking at the soft earth, while a pair of flying squirrels soared from branch to branch over their heads, chittering excitedly.

  “This is wonderful,” Stillwater crowed. “Things are finally going back to normal!”

  They bent their heads together for a moment, then split up to look for the perfect place to build their new nest. Quietshore found a shady spot in the new shallows, where the current lapped against a large, smooth white rock. They fetched twigs and leaves and began to twine them together and build them up, layer by layer. A large carp flashed by, and Quietshore paused to watch it find its way between forests of river weeds.

  Stillwater took the twig from his beak and slid it into place, then stepped into the nest and out again, looking over their work with a skillful eye. Quietshore cawed softly to himself and preened a loose feather from under his wing. She was so good at nest building. The red patch on the top of her head caught the light as she worked, its distinctive gingko-leaf shape gleaming in the bright sunshine.

  He threaded the loose feather into the nest, then stepped a little farther into the water, feeling the peculiar new current lapping at his spindly legs. The river would always warn them if there was trouble coming, but right now it felt unsettled. It wasn’t the terrible splashing of an approaching predator that he felt. It was the sense of great change, and more changes still to come. . . .

  There was a small splash behind him, and he turned to see Stillwater standing beside the nest, the twig she’d been holding now bobbing in the water beside her.

  Her beak was slightly open, and her normally sharp gaze seemed unfocused.

  “Did you feel that?” she cooed faintly.

  Quietshore focused on the feeling of the current, but there was no change. “Feel what?” he asked.

  “Something was here.” All the feathers along Stillwater’s neck were puffing up, and she hopped from foot to foot anxiously. “Didn’t you feel it? It felt like something . . . breathed on me.” After a moment’s pause, she strode out into the river, her footsteps splashing water against Quietshore’s legs. He watched, perplexed, as his mate paced up and down in the shallows, startling another carp that had been lazing in a patch of sunlight.

  “What’s the matter?” Quietshore asked, his own neck feathers beginning to ruffle. “I didn’t feel anything.”

  “I . . . I think . . . I have to go.” Stillwater finally stopped pacing, and met Quietshore’s eyes. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Go?” Quietshore didn’t understand. “We just got here. But we can move the nest, if—”

  “No, that’s not it,” Stillwater said. “The nest is perfect—it’s me. I feel something . . . calling me. There’s something I need to do.” She splashed through the water to his side and pressed her neck to his. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  “Wait, Still—” Quietshore began, but Stillwater didn’t wait. She took off in a single leap, scattering a sparkling trail of water droplets through the air behind her. With a few powerful flaps of her black-and-white wings, she vanished into the Northern Forest and was hidden by the waving leaves of the bamboo.

  Quietshore shook himself and took off, flapping anxiously after her, but she was already gone, as if a strong breath of wind had carried her far away. He circled in the air, looking for any sign of his mate or the currents that bore her, but he found nothing.

  What was happening? Where was she going? When would she come back?

  Would she ever come back?

  With a quiet crack, part of the nest below him suddenly came away from the pale rock where it had been wedged, and the whole thing began to float into the river. Quietshore gave a horrified squawk and flew after it, splashing down in the river and seizing it in his beak to try to drag it back to safety.

  What’s the point? Without Stillwater . . .

  But he wouldn’t let himself think like that.

  She’ll come back, and when she does, she’ll have a lovely nest to return to. Our nest.

  He wrestled with the bundle of twigs, trying desperately to save it, even though parts of the nest were already falling apart and drifting away. Finally he managed to get it back to the pale rock. But he needed something to wedge it into place.

  Frantically he cast around until he saw something long and gleaming white just under the water, the same pale white as the rock. But when he dipped his beak into the water and plucked it out, it kept on coming, longer and longer, until he was holding something thin and curved.

  It wasn’t rock—it was bone.

  Quietsh
ore had seen enough predators with their prey in the mountains to know that this was a rib bone, one that had belonged to a much, much larger creature than a fish.

  He put the bone down gingerly and looked around.

  There were bones everywhere. Hundreds of them, sticking up from the mud or gleaming in the shallows. These must be the bones of the creatures who died in the flood.

  There were so many. He had taken them for rocks, the same kind as the large pale stone where they had built their nest. . . .

  He turned and slowly began to circle the large stone. Then he stopped, shuddering, as he saw the two large round crevices on the other side. Eye sockets, and a sharp row of teeth below them.

  A shriek startled Quietshore as he stood, staring at the field of bones where he’d made his home. He instinctively leaped into the air and found himself climbing alongside a flock of plovers.

  “Fly, fly, hurry!” they cheeped at him. “Predator!”

  Quietshore banked away from them, turning in the air to circle over the shoreline, looking for whatever had startled the birds. He saw the flying squirrels hastily leaping from tree to tree, and a crowd of panicking pheasants scattering from a rock where they’d been sunning themselves. . . .

  Then he saw what had scared them, and fear seized him. The predator climbed lightly down the hill, black and orange stripes rippling as it went, ignoring the panic it had caused. Its whiskers twitched and it sniffed the air as it reached the edge of the water and waded in, letting the water lap around its chest.

  Even from high above, Quietshore could hear the growl that rumbled through the air around the tiger. It seemed to stare across the river, ears pricked and tail lashing in the water.

  Quietshore didn’t know what the predator was hunting, but he was glad it wasn’t him.

  Finally the tiger turned and headed back onto the shore.

  As it passed, its tail brushed against the nest. It dislodged from the side of the skull once more, and Quietshore watched with a sinking feeling in his chest as his home, all he had left of his missing mate, was carried away on the river.

  Chapter One

  LEAF CLIMBED UP ONTO the top of a flat rock and pointed her muzzle toward the Dragon Mountain. It was still so far away, shimmering purple behind the haze of swirling cloud, but Leaf knew they would find their way there somehow. A burst of cold wind ruffled her fur and she shuddered, looking up at the rocky slope they would have to climb next, and at the snowbanks visible on the horizon.

  She had come so far with her best friend, Dasher the red panda—they had climbed peak after peak, sheltered from sleet, and survived the worst earthquake Leaf had ever felt. They had followed the Great Dragon’s trail, and even allied themselves with a tiger. And the tiger had led them here.

  She turned and looked down into the space between the clump of trees on the side of the mountain, where Dasher was tearing leaves from the purple healing bamboo for Aunt Plum to eat. She was already getting better, the sickness retreating from her wound, though it seemed as if she would have a nasty scar.

  Beside them, another young panda sat, holding the end of the bamboo for Dasher. She looked just like Leaf, except that she was better fed, her shape rounder and her fur a little sleeker. Rain Prosperhill, Leaf’s sister.

  Thank you, Great Dragon, Leaf thought. For saving Plum from the attack of the white monster, and for bringing Rain and me together.

  She had always dreamed of crossing the river and finding her mother, and her sister. And now not only had Rain found her, but they knew they had a third sibling, a triplet, somewhere in the Bamboo Kingdom.

  And we’re Dragon Speakers.

  She believed what the tiger Shadowhunter had told her about her destiny, but it was still very, very strange. She had always assumed that the Dragon could hear pandas when they thanked it for their feasts and asked it for its help, but knowing that the Dragon might speak back made her reconsider her words.

  Thank you for helping us, she thought, gazing back up at the Dragon Mountain. I will do everything I can to be a good Dragon Speaker and put things right in the Bamboo Kingdom.

  She hoped that was the right kind of thing to say.

  “Rain, dear, tell me all about the Prosperhill pandas,” Plum said, sitting up to prop her back against a tree. “How many of them are there? It sounds as if the bamboo is much more plentiful there.”

  “Yeah. Loads,” Rain said. Plum and Leaf both looked at her expectantly, but she didn’t seem to want to elaborate.

  She’s still taking all of this in, Leaf thought. She could understand why—Rain had been half drowned in the river, and when she’d woken up she was far from home, where a strange panda had told her that she was one of triplets, that the panda she called Mother wasn’t her real mother, and that she was a Dragon Speaker. Leaf couldn’t blame her sister for thinking all of this might be a strange dream.

  “And . . . tell me again,” Plum prompted, frowning. “About Sunset. Is there no way you could have been mistaken?”

  Rain let out a contemptuous laugh. “What, you mean maybe I just imagined him holding me underwater?”

  Plum looked hurt. “Not at all, dear. I just mean . . . I met him once, before the flood, and he was a kind, wise Dragon Speaker. He never gave me any cause to think he was a liar.”

  Rain cocked her head and scratched behind her ear. “Well—no offense, really—but every other panda on the Prosperhill thinks the same as you. They say he’s wise because he’s good at making up vague prophecies that can’t help but come true, and they say he’s kind because they’ve never seen him making bargains with the golden monkeys so they’ll beat up defenseless cubs. They don’t think about how his ideas don’t make any sense; they just go along with it. They want to believe in him, so they just do. Even my mother! Even my best friend, Pebble . . .”

  She trailed off, and her grumpy expression melted into sadness.

  “We’ll get to the bottom of it,” Plum said gently. “I don’t know what happened to him while he was missing, but we’ll find out why he’s changed like this.”

  “If that’s what’s happened,” Rain muttered. “We don’t know for certain he was ever a good panda. I don’t care either way. I just need to stop him.”

  “Hey, that shouldn’t be too hard,” Dasher piped up. “Not when they find out that the real Dragon Speakers are here!”

  Aunt Plum let out a thin, happy sigh. Her eyes met Leaf’s, and Leaf felt a little embarrassed to see the reverence in her gaze. “My own Leaf,” she said. “A Dragon Speaker—and the first ever to share that honor with her littermates. I couldn’t be more proud of you, dear. Of both of you,” she added, looking at Rain.

  Rain had gone back to frowning.

  “I know it’s a lot,” Leaf told her sister. “But Dasher’s right—I know you want to go back and help your friends, but we have a duty now. And that duty will help us save them! We can challenge Sunset, and help the whole Bamboo Kingdom!”

  “And I’ll help you do it,” said Plum. She got to her paws slowly. Leaf ran to her, putting her shoulder close so that Plum could lean on her, but Plum let out a small chuckle and pushed her away with her nose. “I’m strong enough to walk—thanks to Dasher and his healing bamboo,” she added, turning and giving the little red panda a grateful lick behind the ear. “I know what you need to do next. We must go on to the Dragon Mountain. All new Dragon Speakers make that journey, to perform the ritual and be accepted by the Dragon itself.”

  “What ritual?” Rain asked.

  “No other panda knows what actually happens in the cave,” Plum said. “That’s between the Speaker and the Dragon. But it’s something every Speaker must do.”

  “Then we’d better get going,” Leaf said. “If you’re sure you can walk.” She looked at her aunt, wincing at the fresh slashing wounds that the white monster had left across her nose and down one side of her flank. They weren’t deep, but they were still raw, the white fur around them stained brown from the blood.

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; “As long as we rest for the feasts, I’ll be fine,” said Plum. She took a few experimental steps, and then a few more. Leaf stayed close behind, just in case she stumbled, but after they had walked a few bear-lengths she relaxed. She turned to Rain.

  Her sister hadn’t moved. She was still sitting under one of the twisted pine trees, sniffing the air and frowning. When she saw Leaf looking at her, she got to her paws, but her steps were hesitant. She kicked aside a patch of fallen pine needles.

  “I’m not sure about this,” she said. “What if you’re wrong? You’ll have walked all the way to that mountain for nothing. You could die. You could freeze to death or be eaten by leopards or that tiger could come back—what if this whole thing is just some kind of plot to make sure you’re weak and isolated before he comes back to eat you?”

  Leaf wanted to tell Rain not to be silly, but she reminded herself again that Rain hadn’t had as long to get used to any of this. “Shadowhunter’s on our side, I promise,” she said, directing this partly to Dasher, who had looked suddenly horrified at Rain’s idea of a cunning tiger scheme. “We’ll be okay, if we stick together. And if we get to the Dragon Mountain and nothing happens, well, either way we’ll know for sure, won’t we?”

  Rain sighed, and turned to look over her shoulder. Leaf followed her gaze and realized she was looking south, down the slope of the mountain toward the river and the Prosperhill. She prepared to keep making her argument to Rain, but before she could, Rain looked away again.

  “All right. I’ll go with you. I guess I’ll find out for certain that I’m no Dragon Speaker after all,” she added with a grin. Leaf grinned back.

  You’re teasing me. Like a real sister!

  As the four of them set off from the clearing to walk the rocky slope up toward the purple, mist-wreathed Dragon Mountain, Leaf’s heart swelled. When they got to the Dragon’s cave . . . what would happen? Would they see the Dragon for real? Would it speak to them?

  Whatever it was, for now she was content to be walking toward it. She was with her sister, and soon enough Rain would accept it, too.