In Darkness Lost Read Online Free PDF

the more I resisted, the more pressure she applied, and it hurt.
    “You really have to stop doing this to me.” I grumbled.
    I lifted my head up slightly more, trying to get more air.
    “Make me.” She laughed.
    I sighed irritably. She knew I was a mage, so why did she insist on antagonizing me? I wondered briefly if she wanted me to blow her to pieces, and I began to form the words to a wind spell I knew.
    As soon as I started speaking, she slammed my head down into the snow, filling my mouth with snow. I bit my lip when she slammed my head down and blood flowed into my mouth, hot and metallic, and then dripped down into the white, fluffy snow beneath me.
    It hadn’t occurred to me that she might do this. I had forgotten that as soon as I started saying something, she’d just slam my face into the snow, effectively cutting off my words.
    “Uh-uh, mage boy. Not happening.”
    I tried to mumble around the mouth of snow to ask what she wanted in return for my sister.
    “I’m not done with you yet, boy. Something of mine got lost in the castle. It’s very valuable, and unless something’s happened, no one can see it but you and me. Get it and bring it here in two weeks or your sister will suffer.” She whispered ominously in my ear.
    I couldn’t respond because my mouth was still filled with snow, and my face was in the snow too. I had closed my eyes to concentrate and that was the only reason they were not full of snow right then. I was starting to feel claustrophobic, and panic rose within me. I shoved it down.
    Think! You know spells that you can form with pictures in your head. I told myself mentally. Finally, one came to me. I formed it in my head.
    A flame flickered into life on the snow directly behind the young woman. When enough snow had melted, I formed it into a small maelstrom of water and frozen snow, with chunks of ice frozen out of the melted snow whirling about inside.
    I thrust it with my mind at the woman’s back. It hit with fury. She was blown off my back, and I stayed down until I had shoved it far away from me. She was trapped within the maelstrom, and while she tried to escape the storm, I ran.
     I was too panic stricken to do anything else, and I was worried that if I killed her, she’d be missed and King Vill of Cyril would kill my sister. I was positive that killing this woman wouldn’t have solved anything. After all, she was just the emissary.
    It wasn’t until I got back to the palace and calmed down that I realized I had just met the woman who had murdered King Rillannon of Argent. And she was far more frightening in person than she was as a lurking shadow without a face.
    The knowledge sent chills down my spine. Doing what she asked would mean betraying my Queen’s trust. Dairdra and I were close friends, and doing something like this stabbed me to the quick. But my sister’s life was on the line. Could I justify betraying her to her death just so that I could keep faith with my best friend? I didn’t know.
    I loved Dairdra, but did my love for my sister rival that love? My sister was the only family left to me, and I doubted I could betray her.
    In that moment, I made my decision. I would betray Dairdra’s trust so long as I could be sure that neither she nor my sister would be harmed. Briefly, I wondered if I should tell Dairdra that my sister’s life was on the line, but I decided not to.
    She had enough to worry about. The last thing she needed to have on her plate was another person’s life.
    My sister was my problem. I would do whatever it took; I wouldn’t rest until she was safe. Her protection was the only thing that mattered. 

Chapter 5: Dairdra
    My eyes were glued to the wooden coffin that my father’s body lay in as they lowered it down into the ground. Unable to look away, I stared, tears filling my eyes. This truly was the end. I almost couldn’t believe that this was happening. My father had been alive two days ago, and now he was a corpse in the