Return of the Guardian-King Read Online Free PDF

him. His head hurt and he had a horrible taste in his mouth. He wanted to sit up or even roll to his side, but he felt so weak. . . .
    His stomach cramped again. He almost felt sporesick.
    Something shifted in his mind at that, and he realized he’d been enspelled. It was the breath . . . her breath. Revulsion roared through him as he shoved up onto hands and knees, vomiting into the snow. Then, shaking and gasping, without even stopping to consider the advisability of doing a purge under such circumstances, he turned toward the Light, desperate to get all trace of her out of him. White fire rushed through him in an instant of blinding, breathtaking brilliance, cleansing the active spore and driving back the Shadow within him.
    He found himself lying on his back at the middle of the broken trail, Rolland bending over him, the wolves snarling hysterically around them. The big man grabbed Abramm’s arm and hauled him upright as if he intended to reshoulder him again and carry him up to the monastery.
    Abramm stopped him. “I’m all right.”
    Rolland regarded him suspiciously. “Ye’re sure?”
    “I’m sure,” Abramm said, rolling to one side and gaining his feet. He had a few moments’ unsteadiness, during which Rolland clutched his arm and watched him narrowly. Then Abramm shook him off and hurried up the path. In moments he’d gained the ramp leading up to the monastery’s gate: a tall, double-paneled portal with a much smaller opening beside. As they drew near, the smaller door squealed open to admit them. Just before he stepped inside, though, Abramm turned back to see that the wolves remained where he’d left them, standing in the penumbra between the light cast by the monastery and the path, and the darkness of the night. Tapheina’s eyes gleamed with a golden fire, and he knew it would not be the last time he saw her. . . .
    “This storm won’t be letting up any time soon, you know,” she said. “If you don’t keep moving now, you’ll be stuck up here for the winter. It’s already been six months. How long do you think she can wait for you?”
    A wild terror wailed up in him. He quenched it savagely, refusing to believe it, refusing to let this creature get to him. Turning his back on her, he stepped through the door into an arched stone tunnel lit with kelistars in wall-mounted wire baskets. At his back, the elderly gatekeeper shut the door with a whump and swung the big iron bar down into the holding brackets. And out on the plateau, Tapheina and her sons broke into a chattering of yelps and howls that sounded far too much like laughter.

CHAPTER
    3
    Madeleine Abigail Clarice Donavan Kalladorne gave the wooden sideboard a mighty heave, sliding it into place against the closed door of their tiny sleeping chamber. In the hallway outside of it, the wolves growled, scratching and pushing to get in, the door shivering with their efforts. Behind her, wind pelted snow crystals against the single second-story window while in the street outside the rest of the wolf pack barked and yelped in eagerness. How their brethren had gotten into the palace, she didn’t know, but they had.
    Within her massively swollen belly, Maddie’s unborn baby kicked hard against her back, and her right leg went out from under her so fast she lurched against the sideboard. One of the creatures outside the door wriggled the latch.
    She staggered back and took up the spear, glancing over her shoulder at Simon and Ian cowering together against the wall beside the bed. “Get under the bed, boys,” she said to them, trying to keep her voice calm.
    Simon dropped to his knees and pulled Ian down with him. “There’ll be a bunny hole,” he whispered as he fell onto his elbows and wriggled under the bed.
    Maddie turned back to the door, which was now banging against the sideboard. Somehow the latch had come undone, and each new hit inched the hulking piece of furniture backward. She tightened her grip on the spear haft, feeling