Phoenix in Shadow - eARC Read Online Free PDF Page A

that lay behind the false Justiciars—had been able to fake the Justiciars well enough that no one could tell. She had to assume anything she could do, they could equal. She seated herself at the table and nodded to Vanstell to have the food brought out. “You’re right. But I’d have been dead, dead, dead if you hadn’t come along. I really can’t see you as being that far below me.”
    The exiled Prince of Skysand grinned, and snagged a crispwing as the platter was set down. “I didn’t say we didn’t have some kind of edge. But my poor swords, they didn’t have the edge.”
    “Or rather, they don’t have much of an edge now ,” Poplock corrected, earning a poke from his friend.
    “I really think you need to get them fixed soon, Tobimar,” she said slowly, as she served herself from the other platters. “Evanwyl’s pretty stable now, and I know time’s slipping away.”
    Tobimar paused in eating, and nodded seriously. “I know. I wasn’t going to push you—this is your country—”
    “But maybe you should have. It doesn’t do any good to help Evanwyl if the threat that’s going to destroy it is still out there.”
    “No one’s seen the other Justiciars, have they?”
    She shook her head. “Not since they fled from the Temple before Arbiter Kelsley’s wrath, no. But that just means they’ve been taking this time to figure out their next step, while we’ve been clearing up everything...without ruining everything.” The two didn’t ask what she meant; they knew , and she was incredibly lucky the two had been able to stay and help her.
    The problem of course was that the Justiciars being utterly corrupt—and in the case of Thornfalcon, vastly worse than merely corrupt—was a shattering blow to the faith that held up Evanwyl. The faith of Myrionar, the Balanced Sword, god of Justice and Vengeance, was represented most clearly by two groups: the priests—Arbiters and Seekers and such—and by the Justiciars, the living symbols of the faith. The fact that the entire order had become corrupt, had committed murders for years and never been caught, had even been able to mislead and trick Arbiter Kelsley, undermined all the faith Evanwyl had relied on since before the last Chaoswar, at least.
    So Kyri had had no choice but to stay, to shore up the damaged faith. It wasn’t just a matter of keeping Evanwyl together and strong, though that would have been more than enough for her, but it was also a matter of the mission Myrionar had laid upon her. She had to be, as the god had said, the living representative of the Balanced Sword, and surely that included keeping the few remaining worshipers—the people of Evanwyl—strong in their faith.
    “You still can’t find the Justiciar’s Retreat?”
    She shook her head and sighed. “I’d hoped that I could find it now, because I’m a real Justiciar. But whatever corrupted the Justiciars obviously dealt with that; I get no sense of location even when I head to the West, which I know is the right general direction. Rion told me that all he had to do was think about going to the Retreat and he suddenly knew exactly where he was going. Only one of the other false Justiciars can find their way to the Retreat now.”
    “There has got to be some other way,” Poplock said emphatically, voice slightly muffled as he snagged a large green darter out of the air and stuffed it into his mouth. “There’s other gods, and magicians, and so on.”
    Kyri nodded. “Oh, I have no doubt there is some other way. I just don’t know what it is. Neither does Arbiter Kelsley, or your new teacher Sasha.”
    Tobimar reached for another crispwing, to find that they were all gone. His expression as he looked down and realized he had eaten them all caused her to grin; she gestured to Sanhon, one of the three servers this evening, who whisked the old plate away and replaced it with another. “There you go, Master Tobimar.”
    He had tried to convince them not to call him