Daughter of the Blood Read Online Free PDF

wore. So while Dorothea played out her game of power, he played out his. She destroyed the Blood who opposed her. He destroyed the Blood who followed her.
    In the end, she would win. He knew that. There were very few Territories that didn't live in Hayll's shadow now. Askavi had spread its legs for Hayll centuries ago. Dhemlan was the only Territory in the eastern part of the Realm that was still fighting with its last breaths to stay free of Dorothea's influence.
    And there were a handful of small Territories in the far west that weren't completely ensnared yet.

    In another century, two at the most, Dorothea would achieve her ambition. Hayll's shadow would cover the entire Realm and she would be the High Priestess, the absolute ruler of Terreille, which had once been called the Realm of Light.
    Daemon vanished the cigarette and buttoned his shirt. He still had to attend to Marissa, Maris's daughter, before he could get some sleep.
    He'd only gone a few steps when a mind brushed against his, demanding his attention. He turned away from the house and followed the mental tug. There was no mistaking that psychic sent, those tangled thoughts and disjointed images.
    What was she doing here?
    The tugging stopped when he reached the small woods at the far end of the gardens. "Tersa?" he called softly.
    The bushes beside him rustled and a bony hand closed on his wrist. "This way," Tersa said, tugging him down a path. "The web is fragile."
    "Tersa—" Daemon half-dodged a low-hanging branch that slapped him in the face and got his arm yanked for the effort. "Tersa—"
    "Hush, boy," she said fiercely, dragging him along. He concentrated on dodging branches and avoiding roots that tried to trip him. Gritting his teeth, he forced himself to ignore the tattered dress that clothed her half-starved body. As a child of the Twisted Kingdom, Tersa was half wild, seeing the world as ghostly grays through the shards of what she had been. Experience had taught him that when Tersa was intent upon her visions, it was useless talking to her about mundane things like food and clothes and safe, warm beds.
    They reached an opening in the woods where a flat slab of stone rested above two others. Daemon wondered if it was natural, or if Tersa had built it as a miniature altar.
    The slab was empty except for a wooden frame that held a Black Widow's tangled web. Uneasy, Daemon rubbed his wrist and waited.
    "Watch," Tersa commanded. She snapped the thumbnail of her left hand against the forefinger nail. The forefinger nail changed to a sharp point. She pricked the middle finger of her right hand, and let one drop of blood fall on each of the four tether lines that held the web to the frame. The blood ran down the top lines and up the bottom ones. When they met in the middle, the web's spidersilk threads glowed.
    A swirling mist appeared in front of the frame and changed into a crystal chalice.
    The chalice was simple. Most men would have called it plain. Daemon thought it was elegant and beautiful. But it was what the chalice held that pulled him toward the makeshift altar.
    The lightning-streaked black mist in the chalice contained power that slithered along his nerves, snaked around his spine, and sought its release in the sudden fire in his loins. It was a molten force, catastrophic in intensity, savage beyond a man's comprehension . . . and he wanted it with all his being.
    "Look," Tersa said, pointing to the chalice's lip.

    A hairline crack ran from a chip in the chalice's lip to the base. As Daemon watched, a deeper crack appeared.
    The mist swirled inside the chalice. A tendril passed through the glass at the bottom into the stem.
    Too fragile, he thought as more and more cracks appeared. The chalice was too fragile to hold that kind of power.
    Then he looked closer.
    The cracks were starting from the outside and going in, not starting from the inside and going out. So it was threatened by something beyond itself.
    He shivered as he watched more of