The Living Throne (The War of Memory Cycle Book 3) Read Online Free PDF Page A

time, so I may become stable.  But we've kicked the wasp's nest.  Enkhaelen, the Golds and Sapphires, the Akarridi wraiths...  We can't shelter here much longer.  And you have a mission.”
    Cob grimaced.
    “If I could stab someone with Serindas, it might help,” she added wryly.  “But no such luck.”
    “What d'you mean?”
    “You don't remember?  I've stabbed you I don't know how many times...”
    His side twinged where the scar from the wraith-arrow still lingered.  Her red blade had entered him there, and he remembered it throbbing like a second heart, dragging at the blood in his veins as if determined to steal his life.  “It fed on me, yeah, but how does that—“
    “It's an akarriden life-drinker, forged from flesh.  My bracer can connect to it like a body.  Except since it's not a complete body, the life it steals stays loose within it, so I can actually harvest it—inject it straight into myself.  Can't do that with any other source.”
    “Why not?”
    She shrugged.  “Enkhaelen explained about the...resistance of souls once, how you can't affect an enemy's life-force unless you overpower them spiritually.  Maybe I don't have enough leverage in the bracer.”
    “But you can cut someone, and then heal yourself with the blade?”
    “Basically, yes.  I—“  She shot a look at him.  “Don't you dare.“
    He stuck his arm out to her.
    “No.  Absolutely not,” she said, and tried to lurch up only to have her legs crumple beneath her.  Cob spilled the wolf from his lap but couldn't move fast enough to catch her, and she sprawled across the rock, cursing feverishly.
    He tried to help, but she slapped at his hands, snarling.  Her makeshift hood fell back to show the green-and-gold sash she'd wrapped around her head to cover her missing ear and ravaged cheek, and when he hooked a finger into the fabric, she clamped her hands on his arm and hung there to keep him from pulling.  Fury knotted her face so thoroughly he thought she would bite him.
    “Don't interfere!” she snapped.  “It was my fault, my foolishness.  Don't you dare try to take it on yourself.”
    “Jus' let me help.”
    “Not like this!”
    “What else can I do?  Pikes, like you said, you stabbed me plenty already.  As long as I have the Guardian, you can't hurt me.”
    She stared up at him with her broken eyes and for a moment he thought she might snap, or cry, and had no idea what he'd do if either happened.  But then a twisted little smile formed on her mouth, and she said, “You don't know me.”
    “Maybe you don't know yourself.”
    “Cob, just—  This is a bad idea.”
    “It's practical.  And you don't have to actually stab me.  A little cut would work, right?”
    She gave him a look of pure aggravation and he knew that he had won.  As she drew the red-runed black blade from its hiding place under her furs, though, apprehension banished his triumph.  Beside them, Arik flattened his ears and growled low, staring at the blade as its runes kindled with hungry light.
    “All right, Your Cleverness, roll up your sleeve,” she said.  “Arm is less painful than hand.”
    He obeyed, and she shifted closer, careful to hold the blade at a distance.  Hooking her left arm in with his right, she braced his forearm and steeled her expression, and he looked away, not wanting to see the cut.
    Nothing happened.  After a long moment, he dared to glance back.
    She was staring at his arm, fingers tight around his wrist to keep him from flinching, but had switched her grip on Serindas to point the blade away.  “What's this?” she said, tapping her thumb against a dark mark on his skin.
    “It's...dirt?” he guessed.
    “It's not dirt.”  She scratched at it with her thumbnail to no effect.  “Guardian residue?”
    “Doesn't leave residue.”
    “Then what?  It's under your skin.”
    Eyeing it, Cob tried to think of what it could be.  Straight and narrow, it ran a few inches along the outer edge of his