The Awakening Read Online Free PDF Page A

the Army of the Thane require is freely supplied by any who are asked.’
    ‘So you just take whatever you want?’
    ‘Not at all, First Son. The people are charged with the support of the Empire, and all they own is the Thane’s by right. They are honoured to aid us in their defence.’
    ‘But how is taking me to Smisha a part of their defence?’
    ‘You are First Son. There can be no doubt that any action of yours would be motivated by anything else but the welfare of the Thane and the Empire.’
    Shanek’s heart sank at Leone’s words. She was another who believed in his ‘duty’, the duty of First Son to Thane. There was no escape, no hope of his living any life but this one.
    There were occasions when he felt humbled by the thought that a superb human being like the one who stood before him would happily devote her life, even sacrifice it if necessary, for his wellbeing. The thought that Leone held her own life as secondary to his everywhim was sometimes almost overwhelming, but not now. He was suddenly filled with anger at the complete pointlessness of it all. The waste of a life like Leone’s was too much to contemplate. He turned away from her and stalked off.
    The Fyrd resumed its protective mission, surrounding him with a ring of razor-sharp steel linked to minds and bodies ready to kill. Leone matched his stride, one pace back at his left.

3
    Hwenfayre did not dream that night. Neither did she awake before the dawn and make her way onto the wall to greet the new day. Instead, she opened her father’s old box and read again the letter that he had left for her. The parchment crackled as she unrolled it and laid it flat on the table. Its smell and texture were familiar, sending a tantalising thrill of the mysterious through her, as it had done every time.
     
To my daughter Hwenfayre,
    No doubt when you read this I shall either be dead or long gone from your life. You are not yet born and as I write this you rest beneath your mother’s breast. Every day I can see you growing, and every day your spirit becomes stronger. You are going to be a fine girl, and we shall call you ‘daughter to the Sea’, for you are the very spirit of all that is magical about the Sea. I shall leave you my harp when I go and she will teach you of the mysteries. Be assured that when I leave I shall still love your mother. The love we share will outlast the Sea itself, but I can stay in this place no longer; I must leave. My Mistress is a kind one, but a demanding one. I speak not of a mistress in the carnal sense but of the One to whom I and all my people have willingly given our hearts. She calls me back, as She will call to you one day. You will not be one with the people about you, and one day you must leave, as I must now. Perhaps, if She wills it, we may meet again. But if we do not, know always that my love and that of my Mistress will be with you.
    Your father, Feargus.
     
    It was a different story from the one that Hwenfayre had been told all her life, even by her mother. It raised many questions, not the least of which being the prescience of her father. Certainly, she was not the product of a Southern Raider’s rape, but who was she? Her feelings of not belonging, of difference, of otherness, remained obdurate and indecipherable.
    She spent the whole of that day, and the next, making brooches and matching earrings. For inspiration, she used the ancient and peculiar designs of the jewellery her father had left in the small bag in his box so many years before. Those pieces had profoundly affected her in a way that she could not fully articulate. In a way, they encapsulated her feelings for the wildness and freedom of the waves. She longed for the freedom which she had never experienced.
    Her thoughts turned often to Wyn, a strangely compelling man who spoke to the emptiness in hersoul. His tales of his life on the sea, his adventures and his journeys, had touched her in a profoundly disturbing way. Hwenfayre felt