Dragon War: The Draconic Prophecies - Book Three Read Online Free PDF Page A

“Rienne,” he said, “you know how much I care about you.”
    “Of course.” She couldn’t meet his intense gaze.
    “I’m worried about you,” he said.
    She looked into his eyes then, surprised. “Worried? Why?”
    “You spend half of every day staring over this railing. You’re wearing a rut in the deck from your pacing. I’m not sure this ship can support the weight on your shoulders much longer.” A hint of his warm smile danced at the corner of his mouth, but his eyes remained serious.
    Jordhan’s hands fell from her shoulders as he turned away. “You’re mocking me.”
    “No, I’m not. I know you have a lot on your mind. I’d like to help you, if I can. If you’ll let me.”
    “Help me how?”
    “What do you need? What can I do for you? There’s no one else who can help you, not until we find Gaven, or he finds us. Please let me help.”
    Rienne stared down at the Eldeen fields passing beneath them like a patchwork of greens. What did she need? She wasn’t sure she knew. And she wasn’t sure she wanted help. “My whole life, I’ve depended on everyone—on my family and my noble name, on Gaven, on Maelstrom, on you. I need to figure out who I am.”
    Jordhan touched her elbow. “I’ve never known anyone more sure of herself.”
    “No, that’s not it. My training is all about emptying myself, seeing myself and everyone around me as a part of a network, a web of being and motion. Without that web, at rest, I don’t know …” She shook her head. “I don’t know what I mean, I can’t expect you to.”
    “It’ll be all right, Ree.” Jordhan’s arms encircled her and his warmth surrounded her.
    She closed her eyes and for a moment imagined it was Gaven calling her Ree, and his strong arms around her. But Jordhan was far leaner, and he smelled wrong—like the sea, like the citrus fruit he’d just eaten, like her friend. She pulled away from his embrace. “Jordhan—”
    “I know,” he said. “I’ll leave you alone.”
    Rienne watched him slouch back to the helm, and she felt the weight on her shoulders grow heavier.
    *  *  *  *  *
    A day’s journey past Varna, the airship approached the edge of the Towering Wood. The ordered lines of tended fields came to an abrupt end, and the forest rose like a wall dividing the agricultural east from the lands of the druids and rangers. But it was a wall that would give the eastern farms no shelter from the barbarians, whose approach was heralded by a smear of gray smoke on the western horizon.
    Jordhan pointed the airship’s prow at the smoke, and they floated over miles of forest green, autumn red and gold scattered among the branches. The smoke grew into a cloud like a raging storm, the fires beneath it painting splashes of scarlet across the darkened sky. As the sun’s light drained away, the conflagration came into view. Flames leaped into the sky, pouring smoke into the air. Trees burned like torches as the fire consumed them and moved on, leaving them broken, blackened skeletons. The fires formed a long, curving line like a ripple spreading out from the Shadowcrags beyond. And thousands of campfires burned among the smoldering bones of the trees, glittering on the dark ground below like distant stars.
    “Sovereigns help us,” Rienne breathed. Images from her dream in Rav Magar stormed into her mind again—the tumult of the field of battle, barbarian soldiers falling before the fury of Maelstrom, the bone-white banners of the Blasphemer. And the words of the Prophecy:
Dragons fly before the Blasphemer’s legions
…
    “Jordhan, get us out of here!” she cried. They were high out of bowshot, but if there were dragons—if the dragons spotted them they’d be vulnerable to attack, all too easy to bring to ground.
    The airship jerked as Jordhan urged the elemental bound within her to greater speed.
    Rienne leaned over the bulwarks to peer down at the shadowed ground. The campfires illuminated clumps of people, but she