Mindbender Read Online Free PDF

4
     
     
     
     
     
    “What is your purpose here?” the first demanded. Isabel recognized him from the dining hall.
    Wren looked timid and afraid but didn’t back down. “We were just watching the patrols launch,” she said.
    “Silence, girl! I wasn’t talking to you!”
    Wren seemed to withdraw into herself as she stepped back. Her face went scarlet.
    Isabel and Abigail positioned themselves so they would be ready to fight if it came to that. They were trapped. The staircase in front of them was filled with three big men wearing armor and armed with short swords. The low wall to their back was the only thing standing between them and a fall of seventy feet.
    Isabel stood tall and didn’t flinch despite the hammering in her chest. “As she said, we were watching the patrols arrive and depart.”
    “You have no business here,” the Sky Knight said. It was clear that he was the leader. The other two stood behind him just at the top of the staircase and remained silent.
    “I wasn’t aware this was a restricted area,” Isabel said.
    He looked a bit flustered but quickly regained his sense of moral outrage. “You should still be locked in a cell,” he said. “You and your accomplices killed two of my friends and my steed.”
    “They’d still be alive if they hadn’t attacked us,” Abigail said.
    Isabel cringed inwardly. Abigail was sometimes a bit too brash. These men were caught up in their grief and anger. They were spoiling for a fight and Isabel was hoping to talk them out of it.
    “You trespassed on the Reishi Isle,” he shouted. “You should have all been killed!”
    “The triumvirate thinks differently,” Isabel said calmly. “Mistress Magda assured us that we would be treated as guests. Are you trying to make a liar out of her?”
    He started to say something but stopped short while glaring at her with pure hatred. “Maybe you’re just clumsy and you fell,” he said with an undercurrent of menace. “It’s a long way down and no one here would much care if you two turned up dead.”
    He reached for Isabel. Rather than back away from him as he expected, she stepped into his guard and grabbed his wrist, pulling him closer as she slipped her knife free and brought the point up to his throat. In the same moment, Abigail stepped past him and kicked one of his friends in the chest, sending him tumbling down the stairs. Then she deftly drew the leader’s short sword from his scabbard while Isabel held him at knife point.
    When the third man drew his sword, Isabel shifted the leader between herself and him, then walked him backwards into his friend. She released his arm as he lost his balance and the two of them tumbled down the long staircase.
    Isabel and Abigail raced down the steps with Wren in tow. Isabel scooped up one of the guards’ short swords as it clattered to a stop at the base of the stairs. All three men were injured and bruised—one had a broken arm—but they were all still alive.
    Wren backed up against the wall at the base of the stairs as Isabel and Abigail surveyed the men. The first staggered to his feet and reached for his sword but it wasn’t there. Abigail grinned and waggled the short sword at him mockingly. A mixture of hatred and embarrassment contorted his face. He snatched the sword from the scabbard of his broken-armed friend and faced them, just as Mistress Constance rounded the corner behind him.
    “Warrick!” she shouted.
    He stiffened but didn’t turn his back on Isabel and Abigail.
    Constance stalked past him and stopped in the space between the points of raised blades, surveying the situation with a calm air of command.
    “They attacked us,” Warrick said. “I claim the right of challenge.”
    “Silence,” Constance said calmly. She turned to Wren. “What is your name, child?”
    “I’m called Wren, Mistress,” she said with wide eyes and a bit of a tremor in her voice.
    “You’re Tovi’s daughter.”
    “Yes, Mistress.”
    “Tell me what