The Dwarf Kingdoms (Book 5) Read Online Free PDF

said Elerian lightly.
    “Your flattery would be more convincing if I had not seen you flirting with that red-haired sorceress just now,” replied Anthea, a frown darkening her fair face.
    “I was not flirting,” protested Elerian. “I was merely talking to a stranger that I met by chance.”
    “A beautiful stranger who offered to take you with her to some unknown realm where I would never have seen you again,” pointed out Anthea frostily. “Would you have talked to her if she was ugly?”
    “Of course I would have,” replied Elerian virtuously. “Maybe not as long, but I would certainly have talked to her,” he added with a sudden gleam in his gray eyes.
    Anthea’s clear laughter suddenly filled his mind, and her illusory face cleared. “At least you are honest,” she said lightly, sending her thought to him through the golden tendril of her shade that still touched his right shoulder. “Sit with me now, for we have not conversed in too long.”
    Elerian eagerly sat down on a large tree root growing by his feet. For safety’s sake, he called his ring of invisibility, vanishing instantly when it appeared on his right hand. With his third eye, he saw Anthea’s golden shade sit down beside him. She had ended her illusion so that she, too, was invisible to normal sight. Thoughts began to pass silently between them, carried by small spheres of golden light insubstantial as sunbeams.
    “Have you ever heard of the Peregrin before?” asked Elerian.
    “There are tales told among my people about a strange troop led by a red haired sorceress that hunts these northern forests, carrying off any men or Dwarves that they encounter, but I never gave them much credence before,” replied Anthea. “How did you cross paths with them?”
    “I interrupted their hunt,” explained Elerian. “Laralerian, their leader, told me that they come here through a series of gates once every half century to hunt the leopardi that live in this wood.” He fell into a pensive silence then, trying to imagine the wonders the Peregrin had seen in their travels.
     “I heard her offer you both her beauty and her knowledge,” said Anthea, interrupting his thoughts. “Were you tempted to go with her?”
    “No,” said Elerian at once. “I felt from the first that she was not someone that I could ever trust.”
    “So it was suspicion and not your heart that directed you to reject her,” said Anthea, her voice suddenly as frigid as a winter morning.
    Elerian suddenly felt rather like a fox surrounded by hidden traps. “I must tread warily here,” he thought uneasily to himself. “I had rather face a company of Goblins than her wrath.” After a moment’s thought he began to speak in an earnest voice.
    “Anthea, even if Laralerian had proved herself trustworthy and kind, I would still have chosen you, for you are ever on my mind. When I see the rich hyacinthine sky of last light, I think of your eyes. Then, after night falls, the bright stars bring to mind the gleam in your dark locks.”
    “I see that your tongue has grown more glib away from me,” said Anthea mockingly.
    “I speak only the truth,” insisted Elerian, silently breathing a sigh of relief, for he could tell by Anthea’s voice that she was pleased by his answer.
    “It is fortunate for me that she is not here in her physical form, or I would be as tongue tied as ever,” he thought to himself. Just the thought of her slender body sitting next to him was enough to heat his blood and make his head spin.
    “How are things at your father’s court?” he asked, seeking a safer subject.
    “I am besieged by suitors,” said Anthea slyly. “You presume much leaving me alone for all this time, for my father constantly urges me to choose some brave knight to replace you.”
    “Perhaps you should listen to him, Anthea,” replied Elerian gravely “I have come out of Ennodius with no treasure and only the prospect of more fighting ahead of me.”
    “You are as much a