Eye of the Labyrinth Read Online Free PDF Page B

was not like Antonov. The boy had brains, and he was not the sort to go barging in thoughtlessly with nothing more than his sword and his noble heart to protect him. While she was quite certain that Antonov had thought about little else lately, she was not convinced that he fully appreciated who he was dealing with.
    “The boy isn’t stupid, Anton. He’ll know it’s a trap.”
    “I’d be disappointed in him if he didn’t.”
    “Yet you expect him to walk into it?”
    “He has no other choice. His mother is on Elcast, and that’s where she will burn. If he wants to prevent it, then he must go to Elcast to do it. I could line the streets with soldiers and hang out ‘Welcome Home, Dirk’ signs, and he would still have no choice but to be where I want him, when I want him.”
    “It’s a huge risk, Anton,” she warned. “Even if you ignore the discontented rumbling from the Dhevynian nobility, you risk making a mockery out of the Goddess’s ritual. I’m not sure she would appreciate being used in such a manner. And have you thought about the reaction in Damita? Morna Provin is a Damitian princess.”
    “Prince Baston of Damita would slay his sister, Morna, himself if I ordered it, and the Goddess will understand.”
    He was right about Baston. The man had raised the art of groveling to new heights. Or was it new lows? But it was her job, not Antonov’s, to decide what the Goddess wanted. “What would she understand? That you are using her celebration to further your own goals?”
    “My goals are the Goddess’s goals,” Antonov informed her, with the absolute assurance of a true believer. She didn’t like it when he talked like that. It made her feel obsolete.
    “I will bring Dhevyn to the Goddess through the son of the man who denounced her,” he continued. “It’s the only way to completely rid Dhevyn of the heresy that poisons it.”
    “Even so—” she began, but Antonov cut her off.
    “I’m not so blind to the feelings of Dhevyn’s people as you think, Belagren. I know they accepted Rainan as their queen begrudgingly, and I know that they will accept Alenor even more reluctantly, given the circumstances of her ascension and the fact that Dhevyn will have a Senetian regent until Alenor comes of age. But think about it. If I could give them Johan’s son—if I could place the true heir on the Eagle Throne— there’d be barely a voice raised in protest.”
    She nodded reluctantly. He had a valid point, and that made arguing against it even more difficult. “But even if you could find Dirk Provin, what makes you think he has any interest in becoming what you want him to be?”
    “He killed Johan Thorn.”
    “Was that because he wanted to aid you or to prevent you from learning what Thorn knew?” Belagren asked.
    “I’ve asked myself that same question a number of times,” Antonov admitted.
    “And what answer did you settle on?”
    “You weren’t there, Belagren. You didn’t see him do it. There was no fear in the boy’s demeanor, not even a moment of hesitation. The boy has huge potential. Under my tutelage, Dirk Provin will become what his father could have been.”
    “I’m more concerned that Dirk Provin will become what his father
was,
” she warned.
    “You still think he fled to the Baenlands?”
    “He helped Reithan Seranov and Tia Veran escape the palace after Johan’s death. It seems a reasonable assumption.”
    “Dirk Provin
murdered
Johan Thorn,” Anton reminded her with a shake of his head. “The Baenlanders would kill him, not shelter him.”
    “And have you considered the possibility that is precisely what
did
happen? Have you even allowed for the fact that you haven’t heard from Dirk Provin these past two years because Reithan Seranov and Tia Veran used Dirk to aid their escape, and left him lying in a ditch somewhere with his throat cut?”
    “I’ve thought about it. But I don’t believe it. The Goddess wants me to bring Dhevyn to her. You’ve told me