The Queen of Thieves: The Line of Kings Trilogy Book Three Read Online Free PDF

all in
one place, waiting for a threat to come by sea.
                Leaving their entire
northern flank unprotected.
                It left a bad taste
in Durmont's mouth. He did not trust the woman Selana, Queen of her domain or
not. He did not trust her network of thieves. What fool would?
                A Thief King, he
knew.
                Sometimes he
despaired of his station. Roskel was an astute man in many ways, but a fool
when it came to a pretty face.
                He sighed. Roskel
wouldn't be the first man to be undone by a beautiful woman.
                Roskel's trust for
the Queen was a dangerous thing. The two played each other, circled, like
lovers frightened to embrace lest they impaled each other with their ardour.
                Durmont sighed again.
He was getting too old for the duties he swore to uphold, but he wasn't in his
grave yet. He rose on weak legs, but even here, in his private rooms, he would
not let himself show how weak he had become.
                He took to the
letters with the official seal of the Lord Protector of Sturma to the stables.
Setting his reservations aside, he walked the long corridors to the stables on
old legs, with a heavy heart full of fear.
                Leaving the entirety
of the northern border unmanned?
                Folly, surely. Not
even the mountains would hold such a force as must be coming at bay. Such a force
that could light the entire sky with fire.
                He passed out the
letters one by one to the waiting horsemen, passing each letter with an
admonishment to mind the roads, and making sure each rider understood the
import of the message he or she carried.
                Then he returned to
his rooms, well past midnight, to sleep for his usual five hours. He always
ensured he was up before his masters, for he was a lifelong servant, and
perhaps, he thought, more the fool for it.
     
    *

 
     
     
     
     
     
    Part II.
    The Journey
North

 
    Chapter Nine
     
    Rena dipped her long curling
blonde hair in the frigid stream. Under the shelter of the trees at the edge of
the Fresh Woods the snow on the ground was light, but the stream water was still
near freezing. Ice ran down from the hills to the west, and at some point this
stream might reach a river, and that ice would travel until it hit the sea.
                Asram thought on
this, the passage of ice to the sea, as he looked at Rena's back, in this one
of her few unguarded moments.
                Her hair was so
completely tangled and matted that she could not even run her fingers through
it. She was a witch, but not yet a very accomplished one, maybe, wondered
Asram. She might be able to mix various poultices and make effective brews from
herbs, but she couldn't tame her hair.
                Asram Fell, her
protector, watched her wash her hair with the baby Tarn in his arms, guarding
his thoughts as Rena guarded her emotions.
                They neared the Fresh
Woods, and respite from the road at the new settlement of Haven, but the road
was long yet. Naeth was at the furthest point north of Sturma and they had
started out from the Spar, the southern-most tip of Sturman lands.
                The dangers of the
journey were far from exhausted.
                Yet as Asram held the
child in his arms and watched the young widow and witch wash her hair in the
freezing stream, he was more content than he had been in many, many years.
                He could think of
worse things to be doing than travelling the wilds with a beautiful woman.
                Watch your
thoughts, man, he told himself.She was no man's for the taking,
were a woman ever a man's for the taking. He sighed, quietly, acutely aware of
giving Rena any sign that he watched her so intently. But she was beautiful.
There was no avoiding it, and he