Knightswrath (The Dragonkin Trilogy Book 2) Read Online Free PDF Page A

eyed, staring at clouds—as though he had known her then himself.
    Not for the first time that afternoon, Rowen shook off his thoughts. The last thing he needed was another life when he could barely manage his own. “Maybe I’m the one being driven mad,” he muttered. Jalist’s scowl told him he’d been thinking out loud. He blushed and turned to Silwren. “Forgive—”
    She waved him off. “Ten thousand apologies are already called for in this war. Be assured, yours are far down on the list.” Nevertheless, she stood and walked away. Her dome of wytchfire did not follow, though the campfire she’d conjured began to dwindle. The downpour soaked her cloak, making it cling to her. Before he lost sight of her, Rowen thought she looked small, almost childlike, and afraid.
    Jalist grunted with disapproval. “Locke, I’d appreciate you not antagonizing a woman who could turn our cocks into candlewicks with a wave of her hand.”
    Rowen faced the Dwarr, biting back rage. “She won’t hurt us. You know that. She’s saved my life. I trust her.”
    Jalist raised one eyebrow. “Is that why you almost pulled steel on her a moment ago?”
    Rowen blinked, realized he was holding his sword hilt. “I wasn’t angry. She just… startles me sometimes. Her eyes—”
    “That, I understand. But why is she even with us?”
    “She’s keeping me alive, helping me get to the Wytchforest in one piece. And no offense, Jalist Hewn, but she’s a prettier traveling companion than you are.”
    “Fair enough. But has it occurred to you that your chief bodyguard is a wytch the other Sylvs will likely fetter with arrows the moment they see her? She’s using you, Locke! No way a Shel’ai banished from the Wytchforest would go back unless it was in her own interest to do so.”
    Rowen was quiet for a moment. “I forget how much you hate them.”
    “The Sylvs?” Jalist shrugged. “Never met any from the Wytchforest. Met a few of those Wyldkin, though. No sense of humor, but they seemed like a decent lot.”
    “I don’t mean the Sylvs, and you know it. I meant the Shel’ai.”
    “Same thing.”
    “Not really.” Rowen changed tactics, eager to reduce conflict as much as he was to soothe his old friend. “You fought with them. You fought for the Shel’ai and the Throng… or have you forgotten? And as I recall, you tried to get me to do the same.”
    “I was paid to fight for the Throng. When was the last time you really cared two coppers for the man renting your sword arm?”
    Rowen thought of Hráthbam, the dark-skinned Soroccan merchant who had not only befriended him but also given him Knightswrath in the first place. “Don’t worry about Silwren. She’s nothing like Fadarah. We can trust her.”
    Jalist scoffed. “Trusting a Shel’ai is like trusting a tiger just because it purrs. If you had half a brain, you’d have learned that by now.”
    Rowen smiled faintly. “Well, I never was very bright.”
    “Or willing to back down from a fight. That’s your weakness. You’re as hotheaded as your idiot brother.”
    Rowen winced, and his hand moved of its own accord, touching his sword. His fingertips traced Knightswrath’s dragonbone hilt. He remembered his sword quivering when he drove it through his brother’s neck. He remembered his own name bubbling from his brother’s lips before he fell as a single exhalation of blood and gratitude.
    “Kayden was your friend. He died on my sword. You know that. Don’t talk about him like—”
    “Not all killing is murder. Some deaths are a kindness. From what I hear, Kayden’s was one of them. Or would you rather he live on like he was?”
    Cursed, crazed, forced to murder on behalf of the Shel’ai like some kind of trained hound… “The Shel’ai made him that way. It wasn’t his fault. They tortured him—”
    “Yes, they did.”
    Rowen sighed. “ Some of them, I mean. Silwren and El’rash’lin didn’t have any part of that. And I think some of the others