Prophecy, Child of Earth Read Online Free PDF Page B

dragon blood within him, his dual nature that was both alien and his own, lay dormant for the moment, allowing him a few seconds' peace in the constant torture of his existence. When it awoke it would begin whispering to him again, nattering away with a thousand stupid insistences, a thousand demands. But now, at least for a little while, the constant drone of it was quiet, crowded into the back recesses of his mind by the sweetness of the dream he was having on this, his last night in the strange realm of Ylorc.
    In the silence of the guest chamber he now occupied, Ashe was dreaming of Emily. It had been years, decades, even, since she had graced his dreams, beautiful, innocent Emily, his soulmate, dead a thousand years now. He had met her but once, had passed only one evening in her company, and had known almost from the moment his eyes beheld her that she was the other half that completed him.
    She had known it, too, had in that briefest of moments said that she loved him, had gifted him with her heart, her absolute trust and her virtue, had consummated with him what had felt like their marriage, even though they were both barely out of childhood. One night together. And now her ashes blew about somewhere in the winds of Time, on the other side of the world, a lifetime away. The only vestige of her that remained was hidden away in the rusted vault of his memory.
    But while Emily was dead, in the Past, Ashe was half-alive in the Present. His existence was a secretive one, hidden from the many who hunted him and dictated by the one who manipulated him. For that reason he walked the world in a cloak powered by the element of water, drawn from Kirsdarke, the sword formed of and dedicated to that element. The cloak wrapped him in mist and shielded him from those who could read his vibrational signature on the wind.
    His living shroud obscured him from the eyes of the rest of the world as well.
    He was only here now, in the realm of the Bolg, on orders to observe the three who ruled the monsters of Ylorc and report back. Ashe hated being used in this way, but had no power to do otherwise. It was one of the drawbacks of his life not being his own, his fate and destiny in the dark hands of another.
    The one pleasant thing about this assignment was that it allowed him to be with Rhapsody. From the moment the dragon in his blood had felt her presence for the first time on the Krevensfield Plain he had been involuntarily fascinated with her, drawn like a moth to a flame as intense as the fire that b rned in the belly of the world. Upon actually meeting her, both sides of his
    mre the dragon and the man, had fallen deeply under her spell. Had he more a living man than the shell of a man that he was, Ashe might have h en able to resist whatever charms she had bound him with. As it was, he feared her almost as much as he was enchanted by her.
    Sam . The word echoed in his memory, Emily's soft voice bringing water to the edges of his eyes, even in sleep. She had called him Sam, and he had loved the sound of it. They had parted far too soon; he had not had the chance to correct her.
    ,' can't believe you really came , she had whispered on that night, that one night, so long ago beneath an endless blanket of stars. Her voice still whispered to him now, in his dreams. Where are you from? Tou were my wish, weren't you? Have you come to save me from the lottery, to take me away? I wished for you to come last night on my star, right after midnight, and here you are. Tou don't know where you are, do you? Did I bring you from a long way off ? There was magic in her, he had decided then, and still believed now. It was magic strong enough to have brought him over the waves of Time, back into the Past to find her waiting there for him in Serendair, a land that had disappeared into the sea fourteen centuries before he had been born.
    All a dream , his father had insisted, trying to comfort him when he found himself back in his own time, alone,