Blades Of Magic: Crown Service #1 Read Online Free PDF

out and kill someone that very second. Battle magic could do that. It had done that. She knew of a great-grandmother who had killed six men in her village before she’d been shot down by a storm of arrows from the local guard. Battle magic made the Fairchilds fierce, unpredictable, and deadly. But it was also a gift that she and her ancestors had to treat carefully. For the sake of all those around them.
    But the more positive side of battle magic was that it allowed its bearer to see a person’s intent and divine their true self with it. It was like opening a window to a person’s soul every time she used it. Which is why she tried to use it only as much as required while in Sandrin. That and fact that she didn’t need to use battle magic. She was good enough to defeat the city-bred idiots on her own. Her training and honed skills allowed her to win against the most skilled opponents in duel after duel. If she had to tap into battle magic, it would only be because she needed to drain the build-up or if she was in trouble. The kind of trouble where she was surrounded on all sides by opponents and needed to make a river run red with blood to get clear.
    Staring at the seated man’s aura was enough to make her wary. The tight warp of the colors and feel of the strength coming from him told her he was dangerous. Perhaps devious. But it didn’t make her cautious enough to turn around and leave. She had come here for a reason. She was going to accomplish it one way or another.
    In her mind, Sara thought quietly, Besides, once I’m done signing up for fish cleaning duty, I’ll probably never see him again.
    It didn’t bring her much comfort. She had a tendency to attract trouble of the worse kind. So far she’d been able to handle anything that came at her. But she knew, just as every warrior did, that one day she would meet her match. She just hoped today wasn’t that day. She really needed a job. Then she was forced out of her reverie by a lackey standing in the corner shouting, “Next!”
    The office was too small for the desk and the man who sat behind it, let alone the addition of another man screaming in her ear while a third person tried to push past her as fast as they could. She stepped aside when the pushy man snapped, “Move, woman!” He hadn’t bothered looking at her. She turned around and gave the rude man a shove out the door. She gave a harsh glare to the lackey who had managed to make her eardrums ring. It had him gulping in his little corner.
    The man behind the desk hadn’t moved. She turned to see him staring at her with his arms clasped in front of him and a patient look on his face. Patient like a spider enticing a fly into his web. She stepped forward unafraid. Taking out the work permit, she slapped it down on his desk as she said, “Sara Fairchild, reporting for work in the fishery.”
    Curiosity sparked in his eyes. But he didn’t touch the paper.
    “You don’t look like a fisherwoman,” he said quietly.
    “How does a fisherwoman look?”
    He sat back with a creak of his chair. “The ones I work with? Older. Compact. Hard-nosed and tired. You are the very opposite. A fresh, young lily ready to bloom.”
    “You seem to have a very uniform group of workers, then.”
    He ignored the quip to look down at her hands as he said, “Still there’s something different about you. My daughters are beautiful like water lilies. You remind me of the deadly beauty of a water moccasin instead.”
    Sara lifted an eyebrow, “I’ve never really considered venomous snakes beautiful.”
    “Ah, but you see my dear. The beauty for these creatures is in the swiftness of their bite. The silence of their movements until they strike. They flow through their environments like ghosts until least expected,” he said.
    “Like those creatures you are strong. I have no doubt you are swift, cold and calculating as well,” he continued, “In addition, you have the calluses of a seasoned warrior and the weapons