Blades Of Illusion: Crown Service #2 Read Online Free PDF

sworn that more than once, as she stared into her mother’s eyes, there was a flicker of fear to be found there.
    Fear not caused by Sara and her cat eyes, but rather fear of what their strange color would mean for her future growing up.
    Whatever had caused that fear, she hadn’t seen fit to explain it to Sara.
    When Sara was caught one night returning from the taverns, though, her mother’s eyes only held passionate anger. No trace of the fear that marked her worry for her daughter and her almost-glowing eyes. Instead the look on her mother’s face had been one of rage, a fire burning hot. For a brief moment, Sara considered that she would have preferred her father’s retribution over her mother’s swift punishment. Anna Beth had followed her one evening, unbeknownst to the young girl who was supposed to have the tracking and deceptive tactics of a ‘feral huntress’, but it had been Sara’s own fault. She had impetuously decided to go after they had finished shopping at the market, instead of waiting until later in the night as was her usual practice. In short, Sara hadn’t been as careful about slipping off as she was later. In fact, it was her mother’s stealthy pursuit of her daughter that had taught her to be cagier about slipping off alone and keeping a watchful eye out for followers. After that Sara had learned to duck into alleys, walk along circuitous routes, and even backtrack if needed to throw off a person following her.
    But the night Sara’s mother had followed and snuck up on her in the tavern alone, she was embarrassed to admit, she had let her guard down. Feeling her mother’s presence behind her like a ghost bearing down had made her nearly jump out of her skin. Her hand reached for the knife sticking awkwardly out of her belt at her waist and she shifted into a combat-ready stance with feet apart and shoulders braced, not knowing who was behind her or what they intended. But her mother’s voice hadn’t been far behind and the blistering lecture from Anna Beth’s tongue had quickly wilted Sara’s confidence as her mother’s swarthy and lithe fingers had latched onto her daughter’s ear. 
    Anna Beth Fairchild hadn’t known it, but she’d been lucky that she launched into a long and loud tirade the moment she’d reached her daughter. As embarrassing as the moment had been for the daughter, it had saved the mother’s life. Sara’s hands might have been sweaty, her pulse jumpy and her mind a nervous wreck at the thought of her first bar brawl, but her hands were steady and ready to deliver death. She had slipped the knife from her waist and twisted to stab it straight into her mother’s neck. Before the knife could rise out of her cloak—and more importantly, before her mother had seen the weapon—Sara had recognized who held her by the ear and backed down.
    Then she had listened numbly. Outwardly, her face had been bowed in shame. Most of the tavern patrons had probably thought the flames of embarrassment lit her cheeks.
    Sara had coldly thought, Let them think that .
    The sweat beading down her spine and the ache in her heart had told her that it wasn’t embarrassment that made her lower her head and listen with half her concentration on the task. No, it was cold fear that launched through her as she thought about what she had almost done. She didn’t regret taking a defensive action. Never that. But the thought that she had been seconds away from killing the person who meant the most in the world to her—after the father she revered—had made her more fearful than anything. Because of that moment, Sara had vowed that her mother would never catch her unawares again. For her own sake.
    As the memories continued to flow through her during their walk forward, she thought of the tirade she’d been forced to endure from her oblivious mother, “What business does a young girl have in a tavern? Especially seedy ones like this.”
    Sara had meekly followed her mother out with her