A Land Of Fire (Book 12) Read Online Free PDF

somewhere above ground, grew louder, a part of her, still
distraught, convinced herself that it was indeed Guwayne up there, crying out for
her. She knew rationally that it was impossible; her son was out on the ocean,
far from here. And yet, her heart begged for it to be so.
    “My baby!” Gwen screamed. “He’s up
there. I must save him!”
    Gwen ran for the steps, when suddenly
she felt a strong hand on hers.
    She turned to see her brother Reece
holding her back.
    “My lady,” he said. “Guwayne is far from
here. That is the cry of another baby.”
    Gwen did not wish it to be true.
    “It is still a baby,” she said. “It is
all alone up there. I cannot let it die.”
    “If you go up there,” Kendrick said, stepping
forward, coughing in the soot, “we will have to close the doors after you, and
you will be all alone up there. You will die up there.”
    Gwen was not thinking clearly. In her
mind, there was a baby alive up there, all alone, and she knew, above all, that
she had to save it—no matter what the price.
    Gwen shook her hand free from Reece’s
grip and sprinted for the stairs. She took them three at a time, and before
anyone could reach her, she pulled back the metal pole barring the doors, and leaned
into them with her shoulder, pushing them up with all her might as she raised
her palms.
    Gwen screamed out in pain as she did, the
metal so hot it burned her palms, and quickly she retracted them; undeterred,
she then covered her palms with her sleeves and pushed the doors up all the
way.
    Gwendolyn coughed madly as she burst out
into daylight, clouds of black smoke pouring out of the underground with her.
As she stumbled to the surface, she squinted against the light, then looked
out, raising a hand to her eyes, and was shocked to see one huge wave of destruction.
All that had been standing just moments before was now razed, reduced to piles
of smoking and charred rubble.
    The baby’s cries came again, louder up
here, and Gwen looked around, waiting for the black clouds of smoke to part; as
she did, she saw, on the far side of the court, a baby on the ground, wrapped
in a blanket. Nearby, she saw its parents lying, burnt alive, now dead. Somehow,
the baby had survived. Perhaps, Gwen thought with a pang of misery, the mother
had died sheltering it from the flames.
    Suddenly, Kendrick, Reece, Godfrey, and
Steffen appeared beside her.
    “My lady, you must come back now!” Steffen
implored. “You shall die up here!”
    “The baby,” Gwen said. “I must save it.”
    “You cannot,” Godfrey insisted. “You will
never make it back alive!”
    Gwen no longer cared. Her mind was
overcome with a laser-like focus, and all she saw, all she could think of, was the
child. She blocked out the rest of the world and knew that, as much as she
needed to breathe, she needed to save it.
    The others tried to grab her, but Gwen was
undeterred; she shook off their grip and dashed for the baby.
    Gwen sprinted with all she had, heart
slamming in her chest as she ran through the rubble, through clouds of
billowing black smoke, flames all around her. The black smoke acted as a
shield, though, and luckily for her, the dragons could not see her yet. She ran
across the courtyard, through the clouds, seeing only the baby, hearing only its
cries.
    She ran and ran, her lungs bursting, until
she finally reached it. She reached down and scooped up the baby and
immediately examined its face, some part of her expecting to see Guwayne.
    She was crestfallen to see it was not
him; it was a girl. She had large, beautiful blue eyes filled with tears as she
shrieked and trembled, her hands in fists. Still, Gwen felt elated to hold
another baby, feeling as if somehow she were making amends for sending Guwayne
away. And she could already see, after a brief glance at the baby’s sparkling
eyes, that it was beautiful.
    The clouds of smoke lifted and Gwendolyn
suddenly found herself exposed at the far end of the courtyard, holding