Wings of Wrath Read Online Free PDF

was already a lost battle, he realized. Even Danton had given way to her when he saw that look in her eyes.
    Swallowing the last bite of bread (and how his stomach cried out for more!), he turned his attention to a nearby window and the view it offered of the devastated landscape surrounding the palace. “Tell me how my father died. I have heard the public details, of course, but I wish it from your tongue.”
    It was a horrific tale, one that began with a proud king’s mental dissolution and ended in his bloody death at the hands of his own family. Gwynofar played but lightly upon that last part, perhaps not wishing to discuss why the High King’s own son had decided he must die. The fault did not lay with Danton; she made that quite clear. A foreign Magister allied to a Souleater had used Danton like a puppet and their family had paid the price for it. Salvator nodded as he listened; that much he had already been told.
    But it was when she spoke of the Souleater itself that he listened most closely. It was the first detailed description he had ever heard from someone who had actually seen one of the demons, and it made his blood run cold as a strange elation that was half fear and half awe suffused his veins.
    This, this is the Scourge of the Destroyer, that was sent in ages past to humble mankind. My father tried to stand among the gods and he was brought down for it. Now we must await our Creator’s judgment as he decides whether one such warning is enough, or whether those ancient horrors must be repeated in their entirety in order for us to learn our lesson .
    He did not speak of such things to Gwynofar, of course. She was of a different faith, one based upon human pride, that dreamed of a final battle between Souleater and man, which man presumably might win. It was a primitive faith, simple in its understanding of the world, and in time he would have to address it. But not now. Now was a time for strengthening the bonds of family, not straining them.
    We stand at the edge of a precipice, he thought, one step away from a great and terrible darkness. If we fail to keep our balance, who is to say whether our descendants will ever find the light again?
    â€œYou must decide where you wish your coronation to be held,” his mother was saying. “Little else can be done until that choice is made.”
    With a start he realized that he had missed her last words. Time for meditation later, he admonished himself. “Here, of course. What better place to demonstrate the continuing strength of the High Kingdom than Danton’s own seat of power?”
    She frowned; clearly the choice did not please her. “You know the palace cannot shelter so many. We will wind up with royal encampments in a charred ruin. That is hardly an appropriate setting.”
    â€œPerhaps it will inspire them to reflect upon the nature of the world. That life as we know it is but a fleeting indulgence and that same god who created us can just as easily destroy us.” He walked over to the table as he spoke and broke off another piece of bread. Reflex. After a moment’s thought he put it down again. “Or perhaps it will inspire them to reflect upon the last time this land was cleared, when war ravaged the region, and no prince could afford to offer an enemy cover this close to his gates.”
    He put down his cup and brushed a few stray crumbs from his robe. “But come now, Mother, show me what changes you have made in this place, and how the ancestor trees have grown in my absence. Meanwhile I shall attempt to answer all the questions you have for me, and we may begin our planning.”

    Sunset lay like a wound along the western horizon, spilling crimson clouds into a bruised purple sky. On the black earth below a hundred lanterns sputtered as workers continued to haul away the charred remnants of a great royal forest, struggling to accomplish it by the deadline they had been given. The ground beneath