The Thirteenth House (Twelve Houses) Read Online Free PDF

her to make her exit. Kirra allowed her whole body to grow tense while she lost all interest in the man. Her eyes focused on something invisible down the hall. She was on her feet, but low to the ground in a feral crouch, inching away from the soldier’s side.
     
    He caught the significance of her pose and glanced over his shoulder. “See something? Smell something? I bet there’s all sorts of creepies and crawlies slithering through this place. You aren’t going to want my jerky after all, are you?”
     
    She ignored him, moving forward at an extremely slow pace, almost on her belly, attention never wavering from that spot just ahead of her. Suddenly, she flung herself forward in a pounce, then bounded into the shadows after an imagined prey. Behind her, she heard the guard laugh again.
     
    Well, that had been simple.
     
    She hoped they were able to spirit Romar out of here without resorting to violence. She hoped she was not going to have to watch Justin cut this man down. How could you help but like a man who talked to stray cats in the dark? But Justin would not be moved by any such considerations. Indeed, Donnal wouldn’t be either if the skirmish went that way, if Donnal was the one taking on this particular soldier. He’d be in some savagely threatening shape: a wolf, a lion, a creature that men instinctively feared and usually fell to. He would show no quarter, if it was a choice between this man’s life or his own. Or Kirra’s.
     
    Kirra would show no mercy, either, if it came down to the lives of herself and her friends. But if it was possible to get through the mission without bloodshed, she would like that better.
     
    She was on the top floor of the mansion now, proceeding down a low and not particularly clean corridor. It was easy to follow the tracks in the dust, made by the housekeeper or perhaps the guards as they brought food and water to the prisoner. It was easy to catch the human scent wafting toward her despite the stillness of the air. A few quick turns, a detour down a cramped hallway, and she was there.
     
    Romar Brendyn had been locked behind a very efficient door, a grille of metal that completely filled the roughly made opening. Kirra approved its construction, which would allow guards to keep a close watch on some recalcitrant prisoner. A tricky thing to carry a tray of food into a room when you had to open an opaque wooden door. Hard to know if your captive had positioned himself there on the threshold and was ready to strike you down. A barred door was much safer—for the jailor, anyway. It left no room for surprises, for errors.
     
    Kirra crept up to the grille and stuck her head through, looking around the room with interest.
     
    It was even more bare than the one she was sharing with her companions. There was a mat on the floor, where a man lay sleeping. There was a fireplace grate, currently without a fire. There was a bucket that must be substituting for a chamber pot. A bowl and spoon placed near the door. A good-sized window cut into the wall, but set with thick rods in vertical stripes.
     
    Not much else.
     
    Kirra concentrated for a moment on the sleeper. In this shape, and under these conditions, she couldn’t tell much about coloring, but she remembered him as a man with shoulder-length hair just a few shades darker than her own gold. He was somewhere in his mid-thirties, she thought, and generously built—not as big as Tayse, but solid, a natural athlete who probably spent much of his time training with swords and horses. At the moment, he lay on his side, under a thin blanket. There was clearly no weapon he could lay his hand on anywhere in the room, but he faced the door, as if ready at any moment to respond to danger, and this was the direction from which he expected it to come. Even asleep, he did not look helpless, Kirra thought. She wondered suddenly if the guard had been posted more to keep Romar in than to keep Kirra and her friends out.
     
    She pulled