The Stolen Prince (Blood for Blood Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page A

Around him, the screams and cries of his fellow villagers broke the quiet of the morning. “We will destroy you.”
    Skeet let his sword fall, letting it slice through the side of the man’s torso and into the earth, pinning him to the ground. “Blood for blood,” Skeet said. He removed the sword, grabbed his brother, and ran toward the remainder of the pack. All the huts were opened, and the last of the slaves were being zipped back along the path deep into the forest. Skeet grabbed a zipper’s arm, and vanished with his wounded companion back through the forest to the horses. They were already departing with the other slaves.
    Skeet examined the wounds of the boy. They were deep, but there was hope for him. Skeet sighed. Even though these small raids did little to decrease the air people’s oppression, and they couldn’t hope to free all of the captured Terra, it did good to hope. Hope was enough for now.

CHAPTER FOUR
    “I know he’s still alive,” Queen Sabola said softly, looking at Kara, pleading. She had a feeling, that familiar knowing that she felt when she thought of her children. She would know when one of them had died. Kara looked at her with skepticism. Sabola was sure Kara felt nothing for her older brother—he was gone. She had never known him. Perhaps she missed him in her imagination, but not in reality. He was a phantom that haunted the past, this entire house, and this entire kingdom.
    Sabola held her stomach unconsciously, rubbing her hand across her belly, the way many pregnant women do. She thought of her unborn child—the child she knew was a boy. Her mother had said she had the gift of foresight. It was always in little things, nothing truly prophetic, if anyone believed in the prophets anymore. The Keepers of the Future had verified her gift long ago, naming her part of their order—though they believed it had little bearing on the affairs of the kingdom. She had known her oldest son, Hakon, would be a boy, just as she had known Kara would be a girl. And she knew the baby now in her womb would be a boy as well.
    That would upset things.
    King Arden had been in mourning for almost nineteen years. A cruel and angry mourning that had brought more death than Sabola was comfortable thinking about. Over the past decade, he had appeared to move on. He had stopped the war, content to punish the Terra as slaves. He had trained Kara as if she were a boy, and he concerned himself more with the future affairs of the kingdom than his poisonous revenge. But Sabola understood his grief wasn’t just rooted in sentimentality; it was about hierarchy as well. The laws were strict, and if Arden did not have a son, his kingdom would be forfeited, would fall into the hands of someone outside his direct bloodline. It wouldn’t be long before the line of Arden would become a thing of history. Sabola had always thought these rules of succession were stiff and cruel, but she began to understand them now. The ability to port, whether by zipping or vanishing, was decreasing in every generation of the Alem. King Arden was a direct descendent of the air conquerors, those who traveled from the homeland to settle here. The closer an Alem was to a direct descendent of that first royal line, the greater the likelihood that they would have the gift, the power to port.
    Kara was still staring at Sabola, emotions spread across her face like the untrained royalty she was.
    “You mustn’t display your emotions so greatly, Kara. It’s not appropriate etiquette.”
    Kara started, then nodded, turning stoic. She learned fast. Kara was independent, but she did aim to please.
    “But still, Mother, if I may speak my mind.”
    “You may.”
    “How do you know? How do you know Hakon is alive? ”
    Sabola frowned. She didn’t care to explain knowing to her daughter, but she suspected that Kara was asking a different question. What difference did it make that she knew he was alive? She had tried to reassure the king again and