Duskfall Read Online Free PDF

these two a moment.” He looked back at Knot, his eyes hard. “Then Knot’ll tell us what happened.”
    Knot eased Winter onto the bed, gently covering her with all the blankets he could find. She stirred, her body twitching once in the darkness. Knot froze. Her injuries were not severe; she would wake by morning, weak and groggy and with an aching head, but otherwise all right. He felt a momentary rush of fear at the thought that she might wake now, while he was still here. But she remained still.
    Knot remembered telling her once, while they were out on a rare trip alone on her father’s boat, how he had always felt a pull to leave Pranna. It was one of the few times he remembered genuinely catching her attention. She had always wanted to leave, too. Tiellan tradition, it seemed, had never sat quite right with Winter.
    “Then why
don’t
you?” she had asked, looking out at the gray sea. The sky had been cloudy, a light fog misting over the gulf.
    “Because I’m afraid,” he had told her. “This place keeps me sane. If I left… I fear what I’d become.” He had laughed, then. “Which ain’t sayin’ I don’t worry about what I could do if I stay.”
    She had looked at him strangely. He had come close to telling her, in that moment. Telling her about his nightmares, the faces he saw when he closed his eyes. He had come close, but not near close enough.
    “Being around you, around Bahc, and everyone,” Knot had said instead, “I feel like I can do this thing. Live a good life. Be a good man, maybe.” It hadn’t been a lie, exactly. He had felt that way. But he couldn’t be around them
all
the time.
    He could still remember the waves, cresting gently with small white ridges of foam. How Winter’s black eyes seemed to take in the beauty of the world, bright and shining, despite their darkness.
    “Being around you,” he’d said, “somehow… I want to be better than I am.”
    In that moment, he remembered thinking that he could love this girl. But he knew she didn’t feel that way about him. Then Bahc had approached him with an offer of marriage, and had made it seem so fine a deal for both of them… and Knot had said yes. Put himself first. He had chosen to marry her, despite knowing what she really wanted. He had chosen to marry her because he needed someone to fix him, and she had been the nearest tool at hand.
    And now her father was dead. Because of him.
    Knot shivered. The thin walls, made of driftwood, did not block out the wind. Kneeling, he rested his head on Winter’s sleeping form. He stayed there, feeling her beneath him, and slowly the fear he felt tugging at his gut was replaced by hollowness as he thought of what he would do next.
    He stood and touched her face with his fingertips. It was his duty to protect this woman, now. He owed her a debt. And the best way he could do that was get as far away as possible.
    * * *
    “Bahc’s dead,” Knot said. “Dent, too.” He regretted his bluntness, but time wasn’t on his side. He ignored Eranda’s gasp and continued. “The priestess and two of her disciples were killed as well. I left Gord unconscious.”
    “What about Winter?” Lian demanded.
    “She’ll be fine,” Knot said, avoiding his eyes. Tohn was asleep in Lian’s arms now, and Lelanda clung to his leg. Lian would make a good father one day. Knot felt another pang of guilt that Bahc had asked him—and he had chosen—to marry Winter. If he hadn’t, she and Lian probably would have had a happy life together. And Bahc would not be dead.
    What’s done is done
, he told himself.
    “She’s the reason I came to see you,” he said. His gaze moved to Eranda, then to Darrin, and finally rested on Lian. “Take care of her. She won’t wake ’til morning, but someone needs to be with her when she does. Someone needs to watch over her.” Knot clenched his jaw. He was having trouble finding the words. “One of the robed men escaped. The one who killed the priestess. When I