Feverborn Read Online Free PDF Page A

when he felt the dying, the moment of it, rushing like a glorious wave over (him!) the man. It had been sought, embraced. Relief, ah, blessed relief.
Thank you
, was the man’s final thought,
yes, yes, make it all stop, let me sleep, but let me sleep!
He actually heard the words in a soft Irish burr, as if frozen in time, rustling dryly from the remains.
    He opened his eyes and looked at Drustan, who fixed his deep silver gaze on a spot slightly above and between his brows.
    “It’s not Dageus,” Christian said, “but an Irishman withtwo children who were killed the night the walls fell. His wife perished from starvation not long after as they hid from Unseelie in the streets. He tried to go on without them until the day he no longer cared to. He met his death by choice.”
    No one questioned how he knew it. No one questioned anything about him anymore.
    Chloe staggered and melted bonelessly to the ground, her torch tumbling forgotten to the wet grass. “N-N-Not D-Dageus?” she whispered. “What do you mean? Is he alive, then?” Her voice rose. “Tell me, is he still alive?” she shrieked, eyes flashing.
    Christian closed his eyes again, feeling, stretching, reaching. But life was no longer his specialty. “I don’t know.”
    “But can you feel his
death
?” Colleen said sharply, and he opened his eyes, meeting her gaze. To his surprise, she didn’t look away.
    Ah, so she knew. Or suspected. She’d stayed with the
sidhe
-seers, searching their old lore. She’d come across the old tales. How had she decided which one he was?
    Again, he slipped deep, staring sightlessly. It was peaceful. Quiet. No judgment. No lies. Death was beautifully without deceit. He appreciated the purity of it.
    In the distance, Colleen tried unsuccessfully to turn a gasp into a cough. He was fairly certain she wasn’t looking at his eyes now.
    That eerie Fae wind gusted and blew open the confines of his skull, leveled barriers of space and time. He felt a soaring sensation, as if he’d taken flight through a door to some other way of breathing and being: quiet and black, rich and velvetyand vast.
Dageus
, he murmured silently,
Dageus, Dageus
. People had a certain individual feel, an essence, an imprint. Their life made a ripple in a loch of the universe.
    There was no Dageus ripple.
    “I’m sorry, Aunt Chloe,” he said quietly. Sorry he couldn’t say yes. Sorry he’d dragged them into his problems. Sorry he’d gone bugfuck crazy for a time, for so damned many things. But sorry was worthless. It changed nothing. Merely coerced the victim to offer forgiveness for what you shouldn’t have done to begin with. “He’s dead.”
    On the ground near the pyre, Chloe wrapped her arms around her knees and began to keen, rocking back and forth.
    “You’re absolutely certain it’s no’ him, lad?” Drustan said.
    “Unequivocally.” The owner of Chester’s had packed them off with another man’s remains, intending for them to bury it and never know that somewhere out there a Keltar body rotted and a high druid soul was lost, denied proper burial, never to be reborn.
    Knowing Ryodan, he’d simply considered it a waste of his precious time to make the hard hike down into the gorge and search the darkness for remains when there were so many more easily available in any city he’d driven through on the way back to Dublin. Coming by Keltar plaid wouldn’t have been difficult. The entire clan had been living for a time at the fuck’s nightclub.
    “You can’t bury that man here,” Christian said. “He must be returned to Ireland. He wants to go home.” He had no idea how he knew that the corpse didn’t want to stay here. It wanted to be in a place not far from Dublin, a short distanceto the south where a small cottage overlooked a pond smattered with lily pads, tall reeds grew, and in the summer the rich baritone of frogs filled the night. He could see it clearly in his mind. He resented seeing it. He wanted nothing to do with