The Queen of Stone: Thorn of Breland Read Online Free PDF Page A

fought in the vanguard of many a battle—were no longer necessary. It was the royal succession to the throne of Galifar that had brought about a century of war; many believed that the proper response was to abandon the institution of the monarchy and start anew.
    For all that, Nyrielle believed in Breland. Her homeland wasn’t the paradise of her childhood. But she believed that the king was a good man, that he believed in justice and the rights of his people, and that when the war was over he would tend to the wounds of the nation.
    Whenever her father returned home, those wonderful weeks or months before the battles began anew, she forced him to teach her the ways of sword and shield. When her father was away, Nyrielle would wrestle and race with her brother Nandon and the other Khoravar children, building her strength and speed and waiting for the day that she could serve alongside her father on the field of battle.
    That day never came. On the 12 th of Barrakas, 992 YK, a courier arrived. Her father was dead, killed in a skirmish with Cyran troops. She barely remembered her mother Jaelari, who had left when Nyrielle was just a child. Her father told her that Jaelari had returned to Aerenal, the distant land of the elves, but that she had left a great treasure behind—four beautiful emeralds in the green eyes of her twin children. But those emeralds wouldn’t pay her father’s debts. Their home was sold and the children put to the streets.
    Nyrielle and Nandon were luckier than most orphans of the war. The Khoravar—those who carried the blood of human and elf—of Wroat looked after their own. Nyrielle’s father had no relatives in the neighborhood, so others took turns providing shelter for the teenagers. But it was hard for Nyrielle to be grateful.
    After the death of his father, Nandon turned against Breland, spitting on the war and all Five Nations. For Nyrielle, the dream of serving Breland was all she had left. Her father had died in the war, but he’d believed it a cause worth dying for. She devoted every moment to her dream, drilling with sticks, chasing rats to build her speed, and waiting for the day she would follow in the footsteps of her father.
    She enlisted three years later, and in the training camp she met Zane. At the time, he appeared to be a handsome lieutenant; she learned that it was only one of his many faces. He was impressed by her talents and her lineage; he’d known her father. Zane said that if she truly wished to serve Breland, he knew better ways to do it—battlefields more dangerous than the Crying Fields or the Thrane front. Zane gave her an introduction to the King’s Citadel, the hidden hand of the Brelish crown.
    The Citadel had many branches. The King’s Shields were charged to protect members of the royal family. The King’s Wands were the magical experts of Breland, and they provided mystical tools and training to the other branches. The King’s Swords were the fist of Breland, deadly soldiers called in when force was the only answer. Nyrielle had first hoped to be a Sword, but her greatest strength wasn’t her skill with weaponry. That honor went to her cunning and her speed, her ability to observe and adapt. And so she was inducted into the King’s Dark Lanterns.
    As a child, Nyrielle Tam had dreamed of being a soldier. Instead, she became a spy, a saboteur, and when necessary, an assassin. She became Thorn, Dark Lantern of Breland.

    Open the book to the final page
, Steel said.
    “Why?”
    Are you questioning your orders, Lantern Thorn?
Steel’s voice was a chilly whisper in her mind.
    “I don’t take orders from a piece of metal,” Thorn snapped. “And I don’t like being kept in the dark about the nature of a mission. What aren’t you telling me? Why is Zane keeping secrets?”
    I have been part of the Dark Lanterns for one hundred and twelve years
, Steel said.
I remember when the Lanterns served the King of Galifar, not simply Breland. I have aided true