In Legend Born Read Online Free PDF Page B

now?"
    "There's just one more: Do you want to live?"
    "Are you offering me a choice?"
    "Yes."
    "Ah. I see." A slow, cynical smile spread across Tansen's face. "Tell me, then: Who do I have to kill?"
    Recognizing a man with whom he could do business, Koroll smiled in return. "His name is Josarian, and I need him killed soon. Very soon."

 
     
    Chapter Two
     

     
    A single crescent moon hung like a jewel in the night as Josarian stole through the shadows. Gossamer trees grew in abundance this high up in the mountains, and the brush of their soft leaves against his face reminded him of Calidar's caress. Although his wife had been dead for a year, bleeding away her life as she fought to give birth to their first child, sometimes he could swear he still caught her scent when he first awoke in the morning, or heard her soft whisper when he sat alone to watch the moons rise over Mount Darshon.
    He missed her as much as he would miss his own heart if it were torn out of his chest. He missed the child who had never even been born. He missed the future he and Calidar had planned together and which now would never take place.
    Young and in love, they had longed only for a child to complete their happiness. But, after their marriage, many seasons went by without Calidar's conceiving. She went to the Sisters, but their remedies didn't help. After that, she went to Cavasar to consult the tattoo-covered fishwives who were said to possess the secrets of fertility; but their advice also produced no child between Josarian and his wife. At last, Calidar even made Josarian take her to see the zanareen , the strange mystics who lived at the icy summit of Mount Darshon and awaited the coming of the Firebringer.
    They had given up after that, and Josarian had convinced Calidar that, in their love, they were already blessed enough for this life. Then one season, to their astonishment and fervent joy, their union produced new life. When Josarian looked back, he was glad that he hadn't known, had never once guessed that their joy and anticipation would end in a blood-drenched night of horror and grief. If Calidar had ever feared it, then it was the only secret she had kept from him.
    Since the first time he had seen her, sitting outside her mother's tiny stone house, her face modestly turned away from the street so that only her profile showed, he had never gone an hour without thinking about her. A boy and girl's infatuation had turned into passion, and finally into abiding love, and they had married young. Although they both came from poor families, since all shallah families were poor, he had paid a bride price of twenty sheep. Her father would have accepted much less, of course, knowing how Calidar's heart was set on Josarian; but Josarian had wanted to honor her.
    He had never imagined any future other than being her husband and the father of her children. Under the harsh rule of the Valdani, who were starving Sileria to finance their wars of conquest and feed their vast armies, he and Calidar had sought a peaceful life as best they could. And since the road Josarian had chosen all his life was so different from the one he found himself upon these days, he now groped his way blindly, hoping each step would be the right one, knowing full well it could be the wrong one.
    The wound in his side was healing well, thanks to the Sisters, but it still stretched and hurt when he breathed too deeply, as he was doing now. The Guardians lived so high up, even a goat might find the climb a little tiring, and Josarian was carrying a heavy load. Outlawed by the Valdani who had seized Sileria from the Kintish some two hundred years ago, all Guardians now lived in hiding. Once the most powerful sect in Sileria, their numbers were now dwindling and they lived like scavengers in these mountains. A thousand years ago they had graced the chambers of the Yahrdan's palace in Shaljir and claimed an altar in almost every town and village of Sileria. Now they lived a