Queen of Candesce Read Online Free PDF Page A

at first I wasable to fly away but I lost one fin, then the other. I don’t remember anything after that.”
    Diamandis nodded. “You drifted here. Luckily the winds were in your favor. Had you circulated back into Candesce you’d have been incinerated.”
    That much, at least, was true. Venera suppressed a shudder and sank back in her chair. She was infinitely weary all of a sudden. “I need to sleep.”
    â€œBy all means. Here, we’ll get you to the bed.” He touched her arm and she hissed in pain. Diamandis stepped back, concern eloquent on his face.
    â€œThere are treatments—creams, salves…I’m going to go out and see what I can get for you. For now you have to rest. You’ve been through a lot.”
    Venera was not about to argue. She eased herself down on the bed and, despite being awash in burning soreness, fell asleep before hearing him leave.

2
    Near dawn, the lands of Greater Spyre were lit only by the glitter of city lights high overhead. In the faint glow, the ancient towers and forests seemed as insubstantial as clouds. Garth paused in the black absence beneath a willow tree. He had run the last hundred yards and it was all he could do to keep his feet.
    Silhouettes bobbed against the gray outline of a tower. Whoever they were, they were still following him. It was unprecedented: he had snuck through the hedgerows and fields of six hereditary barons, each holding no more than a square mile or so of territory but as fanatical about their boundaries as any empire. Garth knew how to get past their guards and dogs, he did it all the time. Apparently, these men did also.
    It must have been somebody at the Goodwill Free Clinic. They’d waited until he was gone and then signaled someone. If that was so, Garth would no longer be able to count on the neutrality of the kingdom of Hallimel—all six acres of it.
    He moved on cautiously, padding quietly onto a closely cropped lawn dotted with ridiculously heroic statues. It was quiet as a tomb here, and certainly nobody had any business being out. He allowed himself a little righteous indignation at whoever it was that was following him. They were trespassers; they should be shot.
    It would be most satisfying to raise the alarm and see what happened—a cascade of genetically crazed hounds from the doorway of yon manor house, perhaps, or spotlights and a sniper on the roof. The trouble was, Garth himself was a known and tolerated ghost in only a few of these places, and certainly not the one he was passing through now. So he remained discreet.
    A high stone wall loomed over the garden of statues. Its bricks were crumbling and made an easy ladder for Garth in the low gravity. As he rolled over the top he heard voices behind him—someone exclaiming something. He must have been visible against the sky.
    He landed in brambles. From here on the country was wild. This was disputed territory, owned by now-extinct families, its provenance tied up in generations-old court cases that would probably drag on until the end of the world. Most of the disputed lands were due to the railway allotments created by the preservationists; they had needed clearances that ran completely around the world, and they had gotten them, for a price of blood. This section of land had been abandoned for other reasons, though what they were Garth didn’t know. He didn’t care, either, as long as the square tower he called home was left in peace.
    His intention was to reach it so that he could warn the lady Fanning that they had company—but halfway across the open grassland he heard thuds behind him as half a dozen bodies hit the ground on his side of the wall. They were catching up, and quickly.
    He flattened and rolled to one side. Grass swished as dark figures passed by, only feet away. Garth cursed under his breath, wishing there were some way to warn Venera Fanning that six heavily armed men were about to pay her a