The Shadow Realm (The Age of Dawn Book 4) Read Online Free PDF

center rings were packed tight and rose up into the air like the gooey center of a honey bun. Her stomach rumbled at the prospect of food, but there was much to be done today and it would have to wait. In the central ring rose a small castle, Harwood Hold, a sort of miniaturized version of King Ezra’s palace, built for the Earl. It was immaculate by Breden standards. The King had commissioned the same architect to build it that had constructed the Midgaard palace. In the central ring was where the wealth, loungers and malingers were.
    The middle ring, cleverly named the Middle, was much narrower by comparison to the outer, wide enough for a modest house on each side of the walls and a road for two carts to pass abreast. The middle ring was where the work was done. Blacksmith’s hammers sang on armor and echoed over the walls. The scent of fresh bread occasionally touched her nose. The roads were loosely packed cobbles, worn flat over the years.
    The outer ring was known as a Dirt Ring, where the majority of the populace lived in squalor. They lived in over-packed hovels and survived on the scraps the few charitable denizens of the Middle left them. Unlucky pigeons were a dinner staple. You would be considered fortunate if you were to capture a particularly plump one. The roads were trodden soil, hard packed with heavy use and dotted with scraggly weeds. The outer ring was protected by low fieldstone walls, easily scaled by Death Spawn with a great leap and clawed hands. They were in dire need of a team of masons to patch and fortify it. It would have to be built taller and topped with spikes, like the Tower had. The few masons were already working themselves into early graves.
    Nyset’s eye was captured by a pair of dueling Clyon lizards. They each had four horns around their scaled heads, about the size of her fist. There was a loud crack as their heads and horns collided. Their scales were violet in color and stark in the low grasses. At the end of their long tails were barbs as long as her arm, dripping with paralyzing sap. One lashed with its tail at the other, hissing across ground and kicking up dust. Her gelding whinnied and snorted when it saw them, dancing away from their battle. Nyset should have expected that, but her mind was elsewhere. She gave the reins a hard pull, getting the gelding under control, its eyes rolling.
    The denizens of Helm’s Reach and the Earl Baraz had believed the lies that King Ezra perpetuated. Midgaard was a safe and happy place. Zoria was a peaceful realm where only dreams became reality. Fiction was always easier to believe, the truth a sour tincture, she thought wearily. They had never known war, or rather hadn’t remembered it. They were enamored in their petty feuds. They had forgotten who their real enemy was. The Tower hadn’t forgotten. She would not forget. Nothing would drain a city’s coffers faster than civil disobedience, she had read. That was something Helm’s Reach had in great supply. She would have to remedy that at some point. But how?
    It was about a thirty-minute ride back to the gates, if they could be called that. She was so lost in thought she was surprised to see them approaching already. It wouldn’t take more than twenty Death Spawn to breach them in their current state. The crosshatched bars were pitted and corroded from years of neglect. She wondered how deeply the rust had penetrated the iron. How many slams from a battering ram would it take to pry them apart? They would need to be replaced and would cost marks, something the city was short on.
    Even the Tower’s walls were breached, but they had to try. It’s what Walter, the late Arch Wizard Bezda Lightwalker and Baylan Spear would have done.
    She sighed. The thought of the fallen opened fresh wounds, tearing at her heart and twisting her guts into knots. She felt so alone in this fight. The wind cut at her cheeks, pulling warm tears across the corners of her eyes and into her hair.
    Sure, she