The Fifth Dawn Read Online Free PDF Page A

in captivity. “She’s the key.”
    “Wha—?” Slobad yelped, waking with a start. Glissa had learned over the last week that Slobad was a very light sleeper, something he claimed was one of the main reasons he was still alive.
    “My … my sister. I think she might be under someone’s control,” Glissa said. “What she said, it just doesn’t make sense. She can’t think I … I killed them.”
    “Yeah? Why not?” Slobad asked. He still sounded groggy from sleep. Glissa felt her way across the floor, and sat beside him. “Seem to remember crazy elf saying something like that, once.”
    “It was still fresh. That was guilt. But I know who kept me from saving them, and I know now who sent the levelers. It wasn’t me. I didn’t kill my parents, I know that,” she whispered. Glissa didn’t think there were any scrying spells on them at the moment, but better safe than sorry. “It must be the trolls. Strang is dead, but he must have had an ally in Tel-Jilad.”
    “No trolls left, huh?” Slobad was right. Kaldra had seen to that. But maybe one or two bad eggs had stayed behind in the nest when Drooge had led his people to fight at Glissa’s side.
    “No trolls we liked,” Glissa said. “I’m telling you, someone’s controlling her, or feeding her lies.”
    “Maybe, maybe not, huh? Look, sister elf home when levelers attack, huh? Glissa, not. Now Glissa alive, parents dead. Sister elf’s young, huh? Of course she’s blaming you.” Slobad said bluntly.
    Glissa felt like she’d been socked in the gut by a golem. Could it really be that simple? Had she gotten so used to every single event or problem in her life relating to some sinister secret that she’d missed the obvious, seeing conspiracies where there was just her own neglect?
    “But she’s my sister. How could she think that?” Glissa asked.
    “Elves still people, huh? Just like goblins, leonin, even humans. And when people get hurt, want explanation, huh? Want someone to blame,” Slobad said.
    “She holds me responsible because I couldn’t stop the levelers from killing mother and father,” Glissa whispered. “For being alive while they’re not.”
    “Or she’s blaming herself, huh? Taking it out on you?” Slobad asked. “Might run in family, huh?”
    “Maybe,” Glissa said. She was beginning to feel a little sick. She’d lived the last few weeks with one goal: to makeMemnarch pay for her family’s deaths. If Glissa had believed in gods anymore, she would have prayed for a chance to speak to her sister alone before the trial. She wondered if it would do any good.
    “Sometimes,” Slobad said gently and placed a hand on Glissa’s shoulder, “People take so much time figuring out tricky answers, forget to look for simple ones, huh?”
    “Where’d you hear that?” Glissa asked.
    “Bosh. And experience,” Slobad said and sighed. “I miss Bosh. No offense. Bosh always have something wise to say, huh? Once he started talking.”
    “I miss him too,” Glissa said. The towering metal man, ancient beyond Glissa’s imagination, had sacrificed his newfound life as a flesh and blood creature to give his friends a slim chance of survival. “I miss them all.”

    Bruenna took one last walk around the courtyard before turning in, a habit she’d fallen into over the last week. The overtures from the vedalken had been welcomed by the elders of her people, weary after weeks of fighting the vedalken artifact creatures. Representative Orland claimed that the vedalken wanted to free the humans, live alongside them—and so far, some surprising changes had been made in Lumengrid. The humans were paid for their work in vedalken coinage, and technically the word
slave
had been abolished. Humans still didn’t have many rights, but they were theoretically on the road to more freedom.
    So why couldn’t Bruenna bring herself to trust Orland and the vedalken?
    The problem, she decided while gazing out over theQuicksilver Sea in the dim green