Dynasty of Evil Read Online Free PDF Page A

man … but he doesn’t want to .
    The man doesn’t speak. He can’t. Poison has swollen his tongue. But what he needs is clear .
    “I know what you are,” her father tells the man. “I will not help you.”
    The big man’s hand drops to the hilt of his lightsaber and he takes a half step forward .
    “I am not afraid to die,” Caleb tells him. “You may torture me if you want.”
    Without warning, her father plunges his own hand into the boiling pot over the fire. Expressionless, he lets the flesh blister and cook before withdrawing it .
    “Pain means nothing to me.”
    She can see the Sith is confused. He is a brute, a man who uses violence and intimidation to get what he wants. These things won’t work on her father .
    The big man’s head turns slowly toward her. Terrified, she can feel her heart pounding. She squeezes her eyes shut, trying not to breathe .
    Her eyes snap open as she is swept off her feet by a terrible, unseen power. It lifts her into the air and carries her outside. Upside down, she is suspended by an invisible hand above the boiling cooking pot. Helpless, trembling, she can feel wisps of hot steam rising up to crawl across her cheeks .
    “Daddy,” she whimpers. “Help me.”
    The expression in Caleb’s eyes is one she has never seen in her father before—fear .
    “All right,” he mutters, defeated. “You win. You will have your cure.”
    Serra woke with a start, wiping away the tears running down her cheeks. Even now, twenty years later, the dream still filled her with terror. But her tears weren’t those of fear.
    The first rays of the morning sun were streaming through the palace window. Knowing she wouldn’t be able to fall back asleep, Serra kicked aside the shimmersilk sheets and got up.
    The memory of the confrontation always filled her with shame and humiliation. Her father had been a strong man—a man of indomitable will and courage. It was she who was weak. If not for her, he could have defied the dark man who had come to them.
    If she had been stronger, he wouldn’t have had to send her away.
    “The dark man will return one day,” her father had warned her on her sixteenth birthday. “He must not find you. You must go. Leave this place. Change your name. Change your identity. Never think of me again.”
    That was impossible, of course. Caleb had been her entire world. Everything she knew about the healing arts—and about disease, illness, and poisons—she had learned at his knee.
    Crossing the room to her wardrobe, she began to sift through her vast collection of clothes, trying to decide what to wear. Her entire childhood had been spent wearing simple, functional clothing; discarding it only when it became too threadbare and worn to be mended. Now she could go an entire month without wearing the same outfit twice.
    She didn’t dream about the dark man every night. For a while, in the first year of her marriage, she had hardly dreamed about him at all. Over the past few months, however, the dream had come more frequently … and with it, the ever-growing desire to learn the fate of her father.
    Caleb had sent her away out of love. Serra understood that. She knew her father had only wanted what was best for her; that was why she had honored his request and never gone back to see him. But she missed him. She missed the feeling of his strong, callused hands ruffling her hair. She missed the sound of his quiet but firm voice reciting the lessons of his trade; the sweet scent of healing herbs that had always wafted up from his shirt when he hugged her.
    Most of all she missed the sense of safety and security she felt whenever he was around. Now more than ever, she needed to hear him tell her everything was going to be okay. But that could never be. Instead she had to cling to the memory of the last words he ever spoke to her.
    “It is a terrible thing, when a father cannot be there for his child. For this, I am sorry. But there is no other way. Please know that I