Rise of the Seven Read Online Free PDF Page B

he say anything else?”
I asked. “When you found him, what did we miss?”
    Steed shrugged. “He immediately demanded to
see you, sword drawn.” He met my gaze with a kind of apology. “I
had no idea he was a threat. He seemed so weak.”
    I waved it off and looked back at his
lifeless form. It didn’t seem possible. “He’s just a boy.”
    “ No one of note helped him,”
Chevelle said.
    “ You seem sure,” I
answered.
    “ They would have
waited.”
    The banquet. Why hadn’t he attacked tonight,
when I would have been vulnerable? He could have walked right up to
me and had done with it in front of every clan leader. “Was he a
warning?” Unease filtered through the group. “Maybe he was never
meant to succeed?”
    “ But the silver,” Steed
said, shaking his head.
    “ Maybe he thought he was
strong enough to do it. The talent made him special where he was
from so he decided he would just raid the castle,” Ruby suggested.
“Where is he from,
by the way? He doesn’t look right.”
    “ We didn’t find out,” I
answered, and we all looked at Chevelle again.
    Still nothing.
    Grey came in, a wild energy lighting his
face. I’d seen him quick before, but never on task. It made a
difference. “Witnesses saw a similar youth matching the description
come in with the deliveries. He seems to have been working alone,
as he was unaware of a few customs and didn’t appear to have a
defined purpose. No one accosted him, they presumed it was merely
due to inexperience,” he reported. “We would like to confirm the
identity with the witnesses.”
    Chevelle nodded. “Very well, but keep him
from anyone else’s sight. Resume the search within the castle and
surrounding the gates but only until the guests begin to arrive. I
want no one to know what has happened here.”

     
     

Chapter Six
    Banquet
     
    As I lay back in the tub, letting the warm
water ease the strain caused by the morning’s events, my mind kept
returning to the dull eyes of the boy who’d nearly killed me.
    It had been so close. I’d been exceptionally
stupid, so confident. In a matter of hours, I would be facing every
figurehead in the north. I could not make the same mistake. I would
have to make my position clear, leave no doubt. The banquet might
be my last chance.
    I sank lower into the tub, allowing the water
to soak my patched-up wound. It burned horribly and I closed my
eyes, letting the pain sear my memory, keeping it as a reminder of
what my slip could have cost me.
    A muffled click came from the door but I
didn’t bother looking. “Ruby, get your fairy ass out of my wash
room.”
    She huffed. “How do you always know it’s
me?”
    I turned to glare at her over the rim of the
tub. “Because no one else would hassle me when I’m naked and
meditating.”
    “ Hmm.” She dropped something
on the counter and turned to go. “I was simply bringing some things
you’ll need for this evening. I have to prepare myself as it
is.”
    When the door shut behind her, I tilted my
head back again, contemplating a display of power that would cement
my place. I recalled a few of Asher’s triumphs, but most of those
disgusted me. He considered his banquets a success if each of his
guests left in fear, or some form of it. He used his power as a
threat, constantly reminding those around him of the damage he
could do. He’d explained to me privately that he had to, it was the
only way to secure our rule. But I knew better. I knew because he
used it against me, and I’d had no desire for reign.
    Asher had known me better than I’d known
myself. No matter how I played along with his games, he’d kept me
under his power, showed me what he could do. When I’d strayed, he’d
found ways to remind me. I could see Chevelle again, his tortured
form writhing in pain. At the hand of his own father. No matter his
end, I still hated Rune. He had smiled as Chevelle lay before him.
Chevelle had refused to call out, but his body reacted against