Winter Queen Read Online Free PDF

the plate and began to eat. Enrid threw up her hands in defeat and went back to the hearth.
    Bratton’s breathing had slowed. “We haven’t enough men to guard the canyon,” he said. “But we need to send up some sentinels.”
    Ilyenna nodded. “I’ll have Otrok and his friends go up.”
    “Tell them to light a signal fire if they see any danger and then make a run for it.”
    “I’ll send him now and see that someone in the village takes shifts watching for it.”
    Tension drained from Bratton’s face. The whiskey was working. If he was drunk, she might get some answers. “I’ve heard bits and pieces of what happened.”
    The muscles in Bratton’s jaw bulged. “We came across them just before Argonholm. Their men were fighting off Tyrans, trying to give the women and children a chance to escape. We drove them off. Would’ve moved on to the village, but it was already overrun—Tyrans picking off Argons one at a time. All we could do was gather those we could and run.”
    Ilyenna stared at her hands, still imagining them stained with Bratton’s blood. She’d treated the injuries, but imagining how they’d been inflicted made it so much worse. “Why did the Tyrans attack?”
    “No one knows.” Bratton scrubbed his face with his hands. When he spoke again, his voice sounded raw. “Some of the clanwomen escaped without coats on their backs or shoes on their feet, but not a one left without a weapon. Even the younger children had knives. Without their help, I don’t think we’d have made it.”
    Ilyenna tried to imagine the women and children fighting for their lives. How many had died? Had Rone and his family been among them? She looked away from Bratton and cleared her throat, but her question seemed to lodge there.
    Bratton seemed to know what she couldn’t ask. “I didn’t see Rone or any of his. They were attacked before dawn. Fell just after nightfall.”
    Trying to hide the color rushing to her cheeks, she nodded quickly. “Our clanmen?” She scraped the last bite of her dinner off the wooden plate.
    Bratton rubbed his eyes. “Thirty-eight dead or unaccounted for. Sixty-seven seriously injured. Not one came away without some kind of wound.”
    Ilyenna swallowed several times. “Their names?”
    Bratton shook his head as if to drive away an unwanted image. “Let the dead care for the dead, Ilyenna,” he said coldly.  “For now, you need to concentrate on the living.”

3. Blood and Ashes
     
    Blood seemed to follow Ilyenna everywhere. When she fell into dreams, she drowned in a river of it. Whenever she blinked, crimson light leaked through her closed eyelids. Even now, the predawn sky was stained the color of bloody water. No matter how many times she scrubbed her hands, she couldn’t rinse the hurt from her soul.
    With tears stinging her eyes, she lay slumped against the window, blankets wrapped around her. She relished the cold against her aching head as she watched tiny frost flakes fall from the sky. For a moment, she thought they were really winter fairies dancing and spinning on the breeze—fairies who should have long ago given up winter and returned to their homes in the far north.
    But that was ridiculous. Even if they were fairies, mere mortals could never see through their glamour. She sniffed and wiped her eyes. The Balance was seriously off when the seasons failed to shift and one clan turned on another. It had been two days since the Argons had arrived. She’d been unable to sleep that night. Sometime in the darkest hours, an idea had formed in her mind. A dangerous one. But after two days of people dying . . .
    Bratton moaned and shifted in his bed. After extracting herself from her blankets, Ilyenna went to check on him. He still burned with fever. She leaned over the other bed. Her father was so unnaturally still, no matter how hard she had struggled to wake him, no matter how many medicines and treatments she had tried.
    He was worse than ever. They both were.