Guardians of the Desert (Children of the Desert) Read Online Free PDF

at Deiq as though he’d gone completely mad. He glared them down, defiant and unapologetic; a sensation like being brushed gently by the very tip of a powerful wing on a down-beat shivered through her. The assembled lords clearly caught the full buffeting power: questions and protests died unspoken, and one by one they dropped gazes to the table or looked away.
    Scratha drew in another deep breath, swallowed hard, and looked down at the parchment in front of him. “The matter of Pieas Sessin has been settled,” he said thickly, flicking a glance at Rowe. “His name was cleared in full by his honorable behavior during Lord Alyea’s blood trial.”
    After another long beat of silence, Rowe shifted in his seat, his frown moving from Deiq to Scratha, and said, “You should have waited on me, Scratha. You knew I was on my way; I should have been here!”
    Deiq let out an almost inaudible sigh and sank back into his seat. Alyea realized, astonished, that Deiq’s hands were shaking . She murmured, “What just—”
    “Later,” he whispered back. “Much later. Please.”
    Alyea nodded, a chill writhing up her back; You can’t trust him ran through the hindside of her mind. Deiq tilted a darkly sardonic stare at her, and she suspected he’d heard the thought this time. To avoid looking at him, she forced herself to focus on Scratha’s answer.
    “At the time of the trial,” Scratha said with careful precision, “I did not know you were on your way, Lord Rowe.”
    “You bloody well knew a Conclave would bring a Sessin representative!” Rowe snapped, leaning forward, hands resting against the table edge as if ready to push himself to his feet. The backs of his hands were decorated with swirling lines that appeared to extend up under his long sleeves. Alyea wondered if the bright blue color of the ink had a different significance than the red, black, or green designs other lords displayed. “Don’t play idiot with me, Scratha!”
    Deiq didn’t react; Alyea shot him a worried glance and he whispered greyly, “Posturing.”
    Scratha matched glares with the portly Sessin lord. “Pieas Sessin admitted to a number of serious indiscretions in front of a full desert lord, a ha’ra’ha, and a Callen. I’d prefer to avoid relating the details.”
    Rowe’s face settled into grim lines.
    “The misdeeds he confessed,” Scratha went on steadily, “would have been cause for dishonorable execution on the spot. The witnesses constituted a legitimate triad of judges. I allowed Pieas the mercy of an honorable resolution because he seemed. . . .” Scratha paused, an odd expression crossing his thin face, then finished, “seemed honestly repentant.”
    With a sudden flash of understanding, Alyea remembered Pieas’s plea to Scratha: My lord, give her another chance. I’ve never seen Nissa so heartbroken before. Don’t hold her to blame for my sins. She wondered if that, more than anything else Pieas had said during her final blood trial, had earned the wayward Sessin an honorable death.
    She also wondered if she’d ever truly be at peace over killing Pieas. At the thought, the room seemed to rock slightly, and Deiq’s hand closed tightly around her arm.
    “ Don’t ,” he said in her ear; she swallowed hard and redirected her thoughts back to the moment with a fierce effort. The room steadied. Deiq released his grip and returned to sitting with his arms crossed, a faint frown seemingly etched into his stern features.
    “I see,” Rowe said, and slumped in his chair, his anger visibly draining away. “I didn’t know that. I thought . . . You’ve made no secret of how you hate my family. . . . “
    The last words seemed to blur and drawl with honeyed, weary slowness; Alyea blinked hard, and the long pauses snapped back into focus.
    Rowe’s voice now sounded tart, not tired. “And considering how you treated Nissa. . . .”
    Scratha winced, then seemed embarrassed at showing a reaction. “That had nothing to do with