Son of Ereubus Read Online Free PDF

beside his own. “My Lord, tell me that you haven’t met your match in such a tiny opponent.”
    Garren took the reins from him and mounted the Dragee, repositioning his helmet as soon as he was seated. “She paid for it with her life,” he growled.
    “No matter, my liege, one less soul will make little difference to our spoils.”
    “Let us pray that the Laionai and her most Holy will be pleased,” Garren said it just loud enough for Tadraem to hear it. He hoped his old mentor, now his second in command, hadn’t detected the hitch in his voice.

C HAPTER T WO

S AY THE W ORDS
    T
    he woods were deep and still. Ariana had watched the color of the sky progress from bright blue to a bruised and bitter color and finally saw the sun sink below the tops of the trees. It felt like hours, but she couldn’t be sure how much time had passed since darkness had fallen. She tucked her arms against her chest, her back against the base of a tree. It was ironic how frightened of this place she’d been as a child; now the recesses and alcoves felt somewhat comforting.
    The moon was still a night away from being full, a thin sliver perceptibly missing from its side. It peered back at her from its place in the sky, sending pale rays like silk threads through the forest. Gingerly moving branches aside, her walk back to the village was almost reverent, as if leaving nothing wounded by her presence would somehow save those she had been unable to.
    The place she’d taken for granted for years grew new form. The trampled leaves, twigs, and roots seemed foreign to her, rolling from under the overgrowth and snaking along the forest floor to trip her already unsure footing. She knew better than to imbue inanimate objects with hostility, but her gut recoiled at the mere whisper of a thought related to what had befallen her morning. She went back to cursing the wild, unkempt underbrush.
    Gregor is never going to hear the end of this when I get a hold of him. This should have been clear-cut months ago.
    The absurdity of her thoughts hit her and made her throat dry. A voice murmured in her mind that she would never have the chance to throttle Gregor properly for his negligence.
    There is no sound, nothing, save your own fettered breathing. There is nothing left.
    She almost tripped on it. Absently, she picked up her satchel from where she had thrown it to the ground in dismount and slung it over one shoulder.
    Listen … what do you hear?
    She shook her head against the question. She couldn’t let herself think this way, she had no reason to. Then, her internal ramblings halted with her breathing and any threadbare hope she’d held that Palingard had in any way been spared. She crossed over the densest part of the forest to see clearly what she had been hearing, and ignoring, for a few paces …
    The flames danced and licked angrily at the night air, spiraling upwards toward the waxing moon. Any trace of the festival décor was long gone, and scant pillars remained where modest cottages had once speckled the clearing. Those on the outskirts smoldered, while those in the center remained viciously ablaze. There were no survivors; no one picking up the remnants to begin again, no weeping and mourning, no scurrying of animals to find new shelter. Her vision blurred, her eyes glossed over with unshed tears. Her thoughts were as barren as the devastation before her.
    What she could see beyond the destruction was the scene she had once tried so hard to forget, the one she had been clinging to anew with hope. As if on top of what was real and in front of her, she saw Palingard as it was fifteen years past. The village was reeling from the aftermath of the last siege — shouts of pain and grief heard in equal measure.
    Shock turned to anger as she pictured her savior’s face again. He’d known. The Ereubinian had not spared her life out of goodness or mercy. This had been a game for him.
    What good are his spoils with no one to suffer for