The Shadow Prince Read Online Free PDF Page B

congregated near the exit. My hands grow hot, prickling with energy, as I think of the things Lex suggested in the throne room.
    Lex whispers something to the Elites that I cannot hear. Rowan nods and laughs, glancing in my direction. Fire rings gleam in his eyes.
    I hope to the gods that Rowan issues a challenge now. It would be my duty to riposte.
    Lex clasps his hands in the sleeves of his robe and takes his leave, presumably to join the other Heirs. Only a handful of Underlords remain in the antechamber now, and I wonder if Rowan wants our fight to be a private affair, rather than the spectacle I predicted. I decide to push the issue by advancing toward Rowan—when someone collides with me.
    At first, I think I am being attacked from the side, and I raise my hand to strike, but then I see that the clumsy fool who has gotten in my way is nothing but a scrawny boy. With a twist in the strap of the heavy, ill-fitting breastplate that drapes over his sagging shoulders. He’s the Lesser who stood in front of me during the ceremony.
    “Watch it!” I shout instead of striking him.
    The boy glances at me and gives the smallest nod. Again, I feel as though I should know him. “My apologies, my lord,” he says, and scurries away as fast as he can toward the exit.
    It is now that Rowan chooses to make his move. But it’s not toward me. He signals two of his chimera-faced lackeys to follow his lead. They step in front of the doorway, and the Lesser boy, not paying attention, runs right into Rowan’s chest.
    “Where do you think you are going?” Rowan asks him.
    The boy trembles. Rowan’s menacing glower makes him take a step back. “Returning to my barracks, Lord Rowan,” he says. “As I was instructed.”
    “And you were going to take your borrowed armor with you?” Rowan points at the stack of breastplates where the other Lessers have left theirs behind. “You
know
what we do to thieves.”
    “Yes,” the boy says. “I mean, no. I wasn’t stealing. I just forgot.I was distracted.” He glances slightly back toward me.
    My impulse is to look away, but I can’t.
    “Then let us help you get out of it.” Rowan wraps his hand around the boy’s left wrist cuff, and one of Rowan’s friends clutches on to the twisted leather strap that lies across the boy’s back.
    Before the Lesser can even try to fight back, Rowan and his crony both yank viciously on the boy’s armor, pulling him in opposite directions. The boy screams. The noise echoes off the walls and fills my ears, but I can still hear the sickening sound of his shoulder being dislocated from its socket.
    I react before I even have a chance to think. I push my way through the bystanders who still remain in the antechamber. My hands clutch into fists. I can feel a current of electricity surging up my body.
    Rowan lets go of the boy and pushes him away. The Lesser whimpers and sinks to the stone floor, his arm hanging at an unnatural angle. Rowan opens his mouth to laugh, but I smash my fist into his jaw before he can make a sound. He slams into the doorjamb, and I hit him with a bolt of lightning to the chest.
    Rowan’s two friends try to grab me from behind, but he waves them away. Rowan charges at me. We grapple, knocking into the stacks of discarded armor, sending them scattering. I smash my forehead against his and slam him to the ground. I pin him there with one of my knees on his chest.
    A second bolt of electricity shudders through my body. The energy bursts into my arms and explodes from my fingertips.
    Rowan writhes in agony as I direct the crackling streaks of blue lightning into his rib cage a second time. I imagine the electricity clenching his heart in a taloned grip, squeezing the life from it.
    The energy dissipates so quickly, it nearly knocks me back.Rowan tries to roll away. I grab him by the throat with one hand and lift my other over his heart, preparing to blast him again.
    Rowan and I both know a third jolt of lightning will stop his