Halcyon Rising Read Online Free PDF

inched her way toward the open door. Had he left it that way to taunt her? All evening, she’d measured the distance in her mind, but the half-dozen yards stretched endlessly beneath her blistered feet.
    Sebastian slept on, and she snatched her light stick from the edge of the table. She’d need it to navigate her way down the steep tower steps. His living quarters were on the third floor of the ancient building, and by the time she reached the ground level, her arms and legs trembled with fatigue.
    Doubt assailed her. She’d pushed her body to its limit and didn’t know how much further she could go.
    Titania's Tower guarded the entrance to the caverns where the people of Halcyon had lived while the earth healed. If she could find the tunnel, she could escape far outside Hawkesmere’s gates without running into any of the knights who patrolled the castle’s perimeter.
    She shone her light stick around the stone walls but found no evidence of tunnels or secret doors and wondered if she’d been wrong. Perhaps this wasn’t Titania's Tower after all. Though the tower had looked like the drawings in the history books, she’d gotten hopelessly turned around in her journey from the sea and wasn’t even sure they’d gone in the right direction.
    She wasted several precious minutes circumventing myriad tables and drying racks. Sebastian must use this room to dry herbs and flowers, no doubt to make the various elixirs and potions that lined a large shelf, neatly labeled in small clay jars.
    This further evidence of his obvious intelligence gave her pause, but she pressed on, running her hand over the smooth stone, searching for anything out of the ordinary.
    Her heart thundered in her chest as her search proved fruitless. Time ticked by with relentless speed, and she feared being caught before she even managed to make it out of the tower.
    With a small sob of dismay, she turned toward the door. An escape through the castle proper might be impossible, but she couldn’t waste any more time looking for a tunnel that might not even exist.
    Turning her beam of light upon the huge oak portal, she became stymied once again. Smooth as the walls, the door had no handle; she could see no way to open it. Frantic, she threw her weight against the wood, but the ancient entrance had been built to withstand an attack far superior to the one she mounted.
    She ran her fingertips around the edge, where some sort of internal locking mechanism held the door in place. There ought to be a lever or knob close by, but her search of the room yielded nothing.
    No wonder Sebastian hadn’t bothered to close the door to his sleeping chamber. He’d known she wouldn’t make it very far.
    Sobbing in earnest now, she sank into a defeated heap upon the floor, leaning her forehead against the door as the futility of her situation became clear.
    No escape.
    Trapped here for the foreseeable future, at the mercy of a man she didn’t understand, her options had dwindled to nothing.
    The wisest course would be to climb back up the stairs and hope Sebastian hadn’t noticed she’d tried to leave, but all her strength had deserted her. Weary in both body and spirit, she wanted nothing more than to close her eyes and hope this entire nightmare had been nothing more than a bad dream.
    “Are you well, my lady?” Sebastian’s kind voice sealed her fate.
    She dashed the tears from her eyes with the back of her hand, then forced herself to look up and meet his rueful, sympathetic gaze.
    “I was trying to escape.” She did her best to insert some sort of spirit into her words. He’d caught her in the act; she might as well own up to her folly.
    “I see that.” He knelt beside her, a glimmer of a smile curving his beautiful mouth. “Do not worry; you are not the first to be laid low by my magic door.”
    “Magic?” She gave a shaky laugh, glad to see he didn’t appear angry. “More like a clever trick.”
    “Ah,” he murmured, his smile fading. “I am