Breaking the Gloaming Read Online Free PDF

been only a year younger than Andor, with more talent with the sword. My father had known well my desire to rule, and he had rejected me. My own father. Still, it had not been easy to slip poison into his breakfast.
    “We handled the pain differently,” Mersault said. He was studying me. “I tried to drown the pain in pleasures and wine, and you tried to overwhelm it with power and success. It worked for a season, didn’t it?” Something like a tinge of lunacy lifted his brows. “But look at us! Together, in pain, in the Gloaming! Maybe we should have tried something different—”
    I cringed back as he burst out into laughter. A hysteric fit coursed through his body and forced him to the ground as if he had been struck by a seizure. He lay there, cackling, curled like a fetus. His shrieking vibrated between glee and insanity.  
    The sound crammed into every nook of the attic and overwhelmed me. My body tightened. My mind cramped. I was not ready for this. I could not watch a man break like this.  
    “ SILENCE! ” I roared.  
    He cackled louder, writhing on the floor.
    “ I will kill you! ”  
    He froze and looked at me. His eyes were perfectly round and brown and open and innocent. They were the eyes of a child, a boy who had no business in a place like this. Something about those eyes shattered my resolve.  
    My face fell into my hands, and I began to weep. I thought of this man’s words, this lunatic telling me we were alike because everyone hated us. I though of my father. All the control I had clenched my fists around began to slip. I began to unravel, powerless to stop it.
    I had not wept in years. Tears streamed down my cheeks. I cried for a long time before I realized that Mersault was beside me, patting my back.
    “Tryst, Tryst,” he was saying gently. “Tryst, it is okay. Everybody knows life is not worth living. Everyone we know will someday die. Deep down we all know it does not matter. Others will go on living either way. When and how we die does not matter. None of it matters.”
    His words washed over me. I gained control over my breath. I stood and paced, trying to steady myself. My soul could not manage the emptiness, the thought that nothing mattered.
    Mersault started laughing again.  
    Maybe I was missing something, and thus, everything.

Chapter 6
    SHINING UNSEEN

    “Then they cry out  
    to the Lord in their trouble,
And He brings them  
    out of their distresses.
    He calms the storm,  
    so that its waves are still.
    Then they are glad  
    because they are quiet;
So He guides them  
    to their desired haven.”

    Father Yates gazed across the waves to the city of Valemidas rising before him. He held his hand over his eyes to shade the golden light of the late afternoon sun. Beyond the water and coast, a rocky hill held up the palace, giving it a domineering perch. Many princes had ruled from that perch, but none had faced quite what Andor did now.
    It had been a few weeks since Andor had returned from his failed attempt to bring Tryst out of the Gloaming. After letting him rest for a couple days, the prince’s advisors had smothered him, overwhelming him with each day’s pressing issues. Topping them all was the threat of invasion. Yates knew those threats, but he was unsure of what to do about them. Three days ago he had retreated to the island monastery called the Mont.
    The Mont sat on a rock that jutted from the sea. It was outside the bustle of Valemidas, but within its sight. At the lowest tide, a razor-thin causeway connected the island to the city. A man could run across it if he was fast, otherwise he would be caught up in the rising tide. The monastery that sat atop the Mont was an uninteresting and self-sufficient place. It was a world apart. It housed fifteen nuns and five old priests retired from their duties. Yates found solitude there a few times a year.
    He spent that solitude on his knees. He prayed for peace. He pleaded for turmoil on the seas, storms large