The Misbegotten (An Assassin's Blade Book 1) Read Online Free PDF

body in the form of shivers.
    I rubbed my hands in anticipation and climbed off Pormillia. Sidling up to the edge of the water, I knelt, opened my mouth and allowed the slow-rising steam to pour through me.
    “I promise you,” I said, unbuttoning my coat, “this has nothing to do with primal needs.”
    I kicked off my boots.
    “Nor am I attempting to draw the ire of Chachant,” I added, removing my socks.
    With some manipulation of a buckle, my belt fell away from my waist and down around my ankles.
    “And I certainly am not a ne’er-do-well who wishes to rape you,” I explained, undoing my pants and kicking them across the way.
    My leather jerkin clonked against the ground.
    “And I have no interest in forcing Mother Nature to play the role of voyeur,” I clarified, balling up my shirt and sending it to accompany my pants.
    I slid a couple fingers beneath the band of my skivvies and nodded.
    “So with all of that said, I hope you take no offense, but I’m getting naked.”
    And I did get naked. And I lowered myself into the hot spring, and I closed my eyes as the shivers descended all the way to my toes. The scalding water burned like fire, but, oh, it was a good pain.
    I stretched my hands along the edge, submerged up to my chest. “Ohhh,” I said with a pleasant sigh, “this — this is good.”
    A plop pried open my eyelid, and I watched as a bare Sybil Tath settled into the spring.
    She caressed a wet hand up her arm and around her shoulders, washing away the grime. “How long do you think the walls of Edenvaile could withstand an assault from Braddock Glannondil’s armies?”
    “That… is a strange question to ask.”
    Sybil splashed a cupped hand of water onto her face. “Chachant is convinced Braddock is behind his father’s death.”
    Suddenly the water didn’t feel so warm anymore. “Your lover can’t possibly be thinking of trotting off to war against a man with three times the army.”
    “What would you do if someone killed your father?”
    “Write the good man a letter, thanking him.” Of course, that was impossible, given I was the one who had ended his life. A bit of revenge for a childhood of black eyes, busted eardrums and a mother who walked about with a disfigured face till the day she took one punch too many. “But even if my father was a king who I loved dearly,” I explained, “I damn well wouldn’t mindlessly accuse the most powerful man in the world of assassinating him.”
    Sybil tilted her hair back into the spring, wringing out the oils. “I disagree. It’s a hazardous accusation to make, granted, but not mindless, given Braddock’s proposal.”
    “Did that proposal suggest poisoning a king with a flowing white beard and bushy brows? In that case, yes, it may just be probable that he did indeed poison Vileoux, along with half the northern lords.”
    Hair still soaking in the water, her eyes slanted toward mine. “He proposed to unite the five families under one crown. The Danisers agreed, but Vileoux rejected it. My father followed Vileoux, and the Rabthorns never officially made a decision.”
    Clearly, I needed better spies. Or more of them. This proposal should have reached my ears the moment it left the Glannondil kingdom of Erior.
    “Why one crown?” I asked.
    “It would prevent further destabilization of the realm if all five families allied together. There were various scenarios under which it would operate, from a more liberal arrangement where each kingdom would retain its local sovereignty, to a firmer hand that would…” She searched for the proper words — the proper diplomatic words.
    “That would finger each kingdom,” I said, “and if the kings and queens didn’t scream in orgasmic glory when Braddock told them to, why, he’d march on their lands and annex them for treason. Am I close?”
    Sybil lifted her head out of the water and leaned back against the rock edge. “More or less.”
    I thoughtfully scratched my itchy beard, flinging