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

shoulders hunched and the obnoxious laughter of dozens of soldiers, dockworkers and mercenaries trailing them out.
    Thinking of home, Sara shivered thousands of miles away from Sandrin and the capital city of the Algardis Empire. Not in fear. In anticipation. Even if she had never technically been to war before, she could feel its call like a bloodhound could pick up the scent of prey a mile away. The song of blood and war ran in Sara Fairchild’s veins. In one sense, she felt like she was coming home. It had long been the sacred duty of the Fairchild descendants to serve their imperial family in battle. It was a promise that harkened back to the days when the members of the imperial family were humble servants to an even more powerful family of the Sahalian race—the dragons across the sea. Her father had told the tales of the great deeds of those Fairchilds, renamed when they had landed on the shores of Algardis and had been given their freedom from bondage as indentured servants. It was a noble history. A fair history and one of the reasons that family lore stated they had taken the name ‘Fairchild’.
    Before, coming from the servitude of a fair family—and being known as fair individuals in kind—was an honor. Not every dragon master or family was known for such honor. In fact, most weren’t. Even now, the word ‘kind’ brought about connotations of sweetness, happiness and concern to her mind. In Sahalian society, that meaning couldn’t have been further from the truth. Kind meant the dragon masters hadn’t made a habit of eating their servants on a regular basis; kind meant that the humans weren’t treated like disposable chattel when a dragon grew angry; kind meant the dragons only restricted their servants’ freedom of will instead of shackling them for their own pleasure.
    For a brief moment, Sara closed her eyes and thrust away the history her father had told her over and over. She was a Fairchild, descended from a family that had served great dragon lords and now served a great human family, but as a citizen of the empire instead of property, no matter how fairly they had been treated by their Sahalian masters. As Sara breathed out through her nose, she thought about what her journey to the heart of Kade territory meant. As a warrior who trained all of her life, she knew what it meant technically. She had been trained that when they went to war, she no longer had a home outside of her division. Her division—her comrades and her commander—were her family. It was the man to your right and the woman to your back that was your family. The people who would take up arms by your side and slay your foes.
    For Sara Fairchild, that war idiom was more true than most. She had no family left. Her mother was dead. Her father was dead. One murdered. The other executed. Nevertheless, Sandrin represented the safety of home in her thoughts. She ruthlessly pushed that to the back of her mind; she couldn’t think of Sandrin as home. Her entire being depended on focusing not only on the here and now, but also ensuring that she discovered the secrets of her new life as quickly as possible.
    “Home,” Sara muttered wistfully as she thought of what it had been like when her parents were alive, when she lived in the villa by the sea, miles from Sandrin, and all was right with the world. Now she slogged through mud to a new place, a new home. A home whose foundation would be built from the broken bones and spilt blood of the fallen. Home to a land claimed inch by inch on the backs of gutting knives and slashing swords. Home to a field filled with the screams of the dying and the roars of the victorious.

Chapter 5
    A lmost there , Sara lied to herself as perspiration dripped from her brow and her shoulders hunched under the weight she carried. She wasn’t really sure. She estimated based on the number of days they had walked and the pace they were setting that they were no more than a quarter of a mile from the edge of