Mother of Wolves (Evalyce Worldshaper Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page A

assassination he'd been forced to carry out. He'd bet good vykr that the order hadn't really come from the Khan himself, but had been instigated by the mage that came to Karokorum quite often of late. Kasai wondered who the other Arkaddian was and how he'd come to be on Sevfahl in the first place.

Dashmar, Evalyce, Year of the Golden Hart, 2013 CE
    Merryn crept quietly down the smooth stone corridor and edged into a small work chamber off the left. It was the middle of the night and the room was lit only by a pair of gently flickering glowlamps. A small furnace stood in one corner, the door slightly open, radiating heat into the workroom. The lamps cast eerie dancing shadows along the walls and floor, making it seem as if the night air itself were alive.
    A long, low table ran the length of one wall, tools arranged neatly over it. A handful of uncut gems- sapphires, rubies, emeralds, diamonds, even a single multi-hued zarconite- were piled upon a velvet pouch, glittering in the dim light like dragons' scales. Merryn froze as the man sitting hunched over the table sat back and stretched, running a hand through thick blond curls, before returning to his work.
    Absorbed in his project, he gave no indication that he heard her enter and Merryn curled up quietly in the far corner. From her vantage point the area before him was visible and she could see that he was painstakingly shaping an emerald. The man was Merryn's husband, but the marriage had been purely political. She gave a barely audible sigh. She'd tried, she really had, to make things work, but he paid her little mind. Small wonder that he didn't notice her the occasions she did sneak into the workroom. She knew he would probably be angry if he found her, especially this time of the night, but she couldn't help herself. She wanted to be close to him. And she could hope things improved… Merryn watched him work and wove dreams of a happier future until she fell asleep, propped against the wall.
     
    The blond-haired man slipped the jeweler's loupe from thin-rimmed glasses and let it fall to thump dully against his chest. He took it from around his neck and tucked it away into its proper place. The glasses quickly followed suite. Running his hands over his face, he yawned. Hours had slipped away during his crafting. Trapped in the depths of the caverns, he had little idea of the true time but he suspected it was early morning. Putting his tools away, he surveyed his final product- a leaf-shaped emerald set into a ring base. It winked green fire at him as he turned it this way and that, assessing the soundness of it.
    Satisfied, he put the ring into a velvet pouch containing a similar one cut from carnelian and tucked the pouch into his robes. Rising stiffly, he turned to leave and heaved a sigh as he realized his young wife was sound asleep in the corner. Usually he heard her enter, even though he rarely acknowledged it, but tonight he'd been too lost in his work.
    There were times when he wondered
why
he had agreed to the marriage to begin with. Among a people to whom such alliances mattered not at all, theirs was an unusual partnership indeed. A very surprising and unlikely one whose proposal had thrown him off guard. Merryn deserved more than a man with the chains he bore about his neck, but he'd needed to keep this particular alliance and so he found himself with a young woman nearly ten years his junior, whom he had no idea what to do with.
    He didn't imagine that Merryn was very happy with her situation either, given that his attitude towards her tended to be brusque to the point of disdain, but she seemed drawn to him like a moth to flame so often did she creep into his workroom. It wasn't that he hated her. Far from it. It had simply been so long since he'd cared about anything that his heart had forgotten how. Stifling a twinge of regret, he carefully picked her up. Merryn made a small noise of protest at being moved and burrowed her head against him. With a deep