False Covenant (A Widdershins Adventure) Read Online Free PDF Page A

wire basket so that the hilt could lie flush against her back—was now out and moving. The thug to Squirrel's left screamed and dropped to one knee, clutching at an arm that was now bleeding far more fiercely than the wounded Guardsman's.
    Squirrel and the remaining thief spun, their faces twisting with a betrayed fury, and then recognized their error almost immediately. Squirrel broke into a run even as his remaining friend turned back to face the Guardsmen and received Julien's blade high in the chest for his trouble. Widdershins winced as the body dropped; she'd really hoped that Julien would strike to wound, as she had, even though she knew that wasn't how they were trained. She was only vaguely aware of Simon shoving past her and disappearing out the door.
    Olgun shouted another warning, but there was little Widdershins could do. She gawped up, face pale, into Julien's twisted features; felt his fists close with bruising pressure on her upper arms.
    “What the hell are you doing here, Widdershins?!” He was screaming at her, furious. She couldn't remember ever having seen him quite this way before, and she'd seen him in some truly ugly situations.
    “I…Julien, I…”
    “ What are you doing here? ”
    “Julien, you're hurting me….”
    His face rocked back as if she'd slapped him; his hands dropped away as though she were suddenly burning to the touch. “I…I'm sorry, Shins.” His eyes dropped for just a flicker of a second, then locked on hers once more. “Give me a reason.”
    “A reason…?” Her thoughts were spinning wildly, enough to make her dizzy. She couldn't follow the conversation, didn't know what he was asking.
    “Give me a reason not to arrest you,” he whispered. “Please, Shins, something. Anything .”
    Widdershins had believed, well and truly believed , that nothing else that happened this evening could possibly surprise her. She was wrong. Even Olgun was stunned into silence.
    “Please…”
    Gods, he was practically begging . He really didn't want to have to take her in. Widdershins's peculiar sense of vertigo was, if anything, growing worse. She felt sick, her face feverish.
    “I…I was an invited guest here, Julien. Not ‘Widdershins,’ I mean, but—uh, someone else. A noblewoman that I, uh, sometimes call myself…”
    What am I doing?! I can't tell him this! He can't know this! Olgun, make me shut up!
    But clearly, Widdershins's mouth was a far stronger force than even a god might contend with. Olgun did no such thing, and she kept right on babbling.
    “I, uh—not dressed like this, of course. I mean, this isn't exactly, um, the height of fashionable party wear, you know? Maybe…maybe next year?”
    Oh, gods, kill me now.
    “And do you expect me to believe,” Julien asked softly, “that you weren't here to scout the place?”
    “Uh…I wasn't…” She offered a limp-wristed wave toward the fallen thugs. “I wasn't part of that . I swear it, Julien, I wasn't…”
    “Why didn't you run? You could have kept running.”
    Widdershins's thoughts finally stopped spinning—froze, in fact, crystallized into a single, solid certainty. She looked up, finally meeting his gaze, and felt her heartbeat quicken even as her breathing slowed.
    “I couldn't let them kill you,” she told him.
    For somewhere between a second and a century they stood, staring at one another—and then Julien took a single step back. “Go.”
    Widdershins, despite the ghostly chains of questions and uncertainties that dragged at her ankles, obeyed as swiftly as her feet could manage.

     
    Constable Paschal Sorelle, of the Davillon City Guard, pressed a wad of moderately clean cloth to the gash in his arm and, with a pained gasp or two, staggered over to stand at his commanding officer's side.
    “Sir? I don't suppose you'd care to explain that?”
    Major Bouniard tore his attentions away from the darkness into which Widdershins had vanished and bestowed a disapproving frown on his lieutenant.