A Charge of Valor Read Online Free PDF

here, we will all die.”
    “ And if you leave?” she asked.
    “ I will likely die either way,” he admitted. “But this will at least give us all a chance. A tiny chance, but a chance.”
    Alistair turned and walked to the window, looking out over the Duke’s courtyard in the setting sun, her face lit by the soft light. Erec could see the sadness etched across it, and he came to her and brushed the hair off her neck, caressing her.
    “ Do not be sad, my lady,” he said. “If I survive this, I will return to you. And then we shall be together, forever, free from all dangers and threats. Free to finally live our lives together.”
    Sadly, she shook her head.
    “ I’m afraid,” she said.
    “ Of the approaching armies?” he asked.
    “ No,” she said turning to him. “Of you.”
    Erec looked back, puzzled.
    “ I’m afraid that you will think of me differently now,” she said, “since you saw what happened on the battlefield.”
    Erec shook his head.
    “ I do not think of you differently at all,” he said. “You saved my life, and for that I’m grateful.”
    She shook her head.
    “ But you also saw a different side of me,” she said. “You saw that I’m not normal. I’m not like everybody else. I have a power within me which I do not understand. And now I fear you will think of me as some sort of freak. As a woman you no longer want for your wife.”
    Erec’s heart broke at her words, and he stepped forward, took her hands earnestly in his, and looked into her eyes with all the seriousness he could muster.
    “ Alistair,” he said. “I love you with everything that I am. There has never been a woman that I have loved more. And there never will be. I love all that you are. I see you no differently as anyone else. Whatever powers you have, whoever it is that you are—even if I do not understand it, I accept all of it. I’m grateful for all of it. I vowed not to pry, and I shall keep that vow. I will never ask you. Whatever it is that you are, I accept it.”
    She stared back at him for a long time, then slowly, she broke into a smile, and her eyes fluttered with tears of relief and joy. She turned and embraced him, hugging him tightly, with everything she had.
    She whispered in his ear: “Come back to me.”

     

CHAPTER FOUR
     
     
     
    Gareth stood at the cave’s edge, watching the sun fall, and waited. He licked his dry lips and tried to focus, the effects of the opium finally wearing off. He was lightheaded, and hadn’t drank or eaten in days. Gareth thought back to his daring escape from the castle, slinking out through the secret passageway behind the fireplace, right before Lord Kultin had tried to ambush him, and he smiled. Kultin had been smart in his coup—but Gareth had been smarter. Like everyone else, he had underestimated Gareth; he hadn’t realized that Gareth’s spies were everywhere, and that he’d known about his plot almost instantly.
    Gareth had escaped just in time, right before Kultin had ambushed him and before Andronicus had invaded King’s Court and razed it to the ground. Lord Kultin had done him a favor.
    Gareth had taken the ancient, secret passageways out of the castle, twisting and turning beneath the ground, finally letting him out in the countryside, surfacing in a remote village miles from King’s Court. He had surfaced near this cave, and he had collapsed upon reaching it, sleeping throughout the day, huddled up and shivering in the relentless winter air. He wished that he had brought more layers of clothing.
    Awake, Gareth crouched and eyed, in the distance, the small farming village; there were a handful of cottages, smoke rising from their chimneys, and throughout were Andronicus’ soldiers marching through the village and the countryside. Gareth had waited patiently until they dispersed. His stomach ached with hunger, and he knew he needed to make it to one of those houses. He could smell the food cooking from here.
    Gareth sprinted from the cave,