Time Without End (The Black Rose Chronicles) Read Online Free PDF Page B

measure of her ardor for Valerian Lazarus came down upon her, crushing her spirit as surely as a fallen wall would have done her body. In that terrible moment she knew that she had loved Valerian as long as she had known him, which was all her life, and that they had been together before the stars were born.
    “You are bold,” the baron remarked, lowering the steel only to beckon to his squire, who was yet trembling from his own encounter with the nobleman. “Fetch a second sword,” he told the servant.
    Brenna’s heart seized with the knowledge that her father meant to challenge Valerian. There could be no contest—despite the lad’s youth and strength, he had no experience with weapons. The baron, on the other hand, had wielded heavy swords daily, from earliest childhood. He was a seasoned warrior.
    “No!” she managed to shriek. Challes tried to hold her, but in her desperation of fear, Brenna broke free. Her face streaked with tears, she clutched at the sleeve of the baron’s tunic. “Don’t do this, Father,” she pleaded. She dropped to her knees then, grasping his clothing with both hands now, her knuckles white with the effort. “Don’t kill Valerian,” she pleaded. “Oh, please—I’ll do anything—”
    Her father’s face was terrible, flushed with rage and chagrin, and Brenna did not dare to look at Valerian’s. She knew, too late, that she should have listened to the tutor, that she had made a grave mistake in revealing the extent of her devotion.
    “You would beg like a street whore,” the baron seethed in a vicious tone, “for the life of this—dog?”
    Valerian stiffened; Brenna felt it, though she still lacked the courage to look into his eyes. It was bad enough meeting her father’s condemning gaze.
    “I love him,” she said.
    The baron backhanded her then, so hard that she went sprawling backward into the dust of the courtyard. Valerian made a growling, inhuman sound and lunged at her father.
    A furious bellow spilled from the baron’s throat, and over it all Brenna’s own sobs could be heard, as well as the frantic peace pleas of poor Challes.
    The baron raised his sword and neatly sliced open Valerian’s poor garment, along with the flesh beneath. The baron laughed, the sound echoing off the inner walls of the keep, like the ravings of a madman. “So you dare to go for my throat, do you?” he roared as the squire returned with the extra sword. “You are brave, as well as insolent, like so many fools.” At a gesture from his master, the servant handed the second blade to Valerian. “Well, upon this day, you shall die.”
    “No!” Brenna screamed, clawing at the ground with spread fingers in her effort to get to her feet and fling herself upon her father. But this time Challes succeeded in forestalling her; he wrapped an arm around her middle and dragged her backward into the shadows. When she shrieked in protest, the tutor slapped her, but it was the words that followed that quieted her, rather than the blow.
    “God save us all, my lady, you’ve already doomed your beloved with your imprudent ways! Will you see him sundered at the joints as well, like a fowl to be served at supper? In the name of all that’s holy, be still, and perhaps some passing angel will show us mercy!”
    Dirty and broken inside, Brenna sagged against her teacher, weeping softly, and he held her.
    Valerian took the sword, and though he was not experienced, he was strong. The battle raged for an eternity, it seemed to Brenna. Her father prevailed for a time, then Valerian. Both men were bloodied, their clothes drenched with sweat and gritty with courtyard dirt. At last the baron swung his blade in a mighty arch, and Valerian went down with nary a cry, with a deep, crimson gash in his middle.
    He did not rise.
    Brenna screamed inwardly, silently.
    The baron, unsteady on his feet, breathing hard and bleeding copiously from wounds in his upper arm and one shoulder, looked down upon the half-conscious