A Sliver of Redemption by David Dalglish Read Free Book Online Page B

and hunting him down burned through his veins. In the end, he let it die. Suicide would not win Tessanna back, and more importantly, he wasn't sure if he even wanted her. Whatever she represented, it wasn't anything pure. But he didn't want her with Velixar, that much he knew.
    No one deserved that fate.
    Especially someone he loved.
    “Damn it all to the Abyss,” he said, leaning back and covering his eyes with his forearm. Someone he loved, he’d thought. So he still did. One question answered, a million more made anew. Questions that should have waited until the dawn, but he knew would keep him awake, gnawing like tiny insects within his brain.
    Damn it all, indeed.

    T hey marched out, Tessanna at Velixar's side, looking like his beautiful bride in a silver dress and with thin strands of gold decorating her hair. She didn't feel like a princess. All around them shuffled rows and rows of undead. Among their ranks were many angels and demons, their golden skin pale and dead, their wings limp and featherless. She tried her best not to look at them.
    High above, Thulos's troops flew in perfect triangular formations. In their center, tied by twenty ropes and carried by the demons, hung the throne of Veldaren. Like a conquering king, Thulos sat on its cushions and looked out across the land that was his.
    They traveled until nightfall. The two might have shared a tent, but the cold of night meant nothing to Velixar, nor did sleep. He left her huddled under several blankets, seeking prayer with his dark god. When he left, Tessanna finally allowed herself to think freely.
    She’d been terrified he would try to take her, although she was not sure how that would work, or if it could. She remembered that moment in the tower, and decided she did not want to know. She wrapped her blankets tighter and thought of Qurrah. She had called him master before, but she’d known he loved her, would do anything for her. In caring hands such as those, she could freely offer her body and soul, and do all that those loving hands demanded. But Velixar?
    She shivered. He would have taken her, then and there, while Thulos's army watched. There was a time she might have been able to resist, but stripped of her power, she felt helpless, worthless, a pathetic girl sobbing in a dark tent. The lunacy in Velixar's eyes terrified her. Normally he was detached from his emotions, a calm puppet-master moving the strings as he desired. No longer. The world was ending, and his safeguards were crumbling. The man wanted victory, and all its fruits.
    “I'm sorry, Qurrah,” she whispered. Part of her cried out in pain against such an apology, declaring him undeserving. She ignored it. She didn't need that hurt anymore. At first, she had planned to go along with Velixar's game. It certainly wouldn't have been the first time she'd played along with a man who thought himself tougher, stronger. But no, this was different. Every shred of her soul had shrieked against those eyes as they had stared into her, ordering her to kneel. Yet she had anyway.
    “What's happening to me, Qurrah?” she asked, feeling comforted by his imagined presence. That presence she could talk to, be herself without fear. Just like it had been when they were together. Before Aullienna. Before Velixar. Before Karak had smashed his fist into their lives and destroyed everything.
    Aullienna. And her stillborn daughter, Teralyn. Gone. Gone.
    Her rage exploded. She felt nothing but loathing and contempt for the miserable sack of bones. Velixar had killed those she loved, and never could she forget the blasphemy that had stirred within the small buried bag. Teralyn, brought back in a horrid state of undeath, the pathetic offering of a death god incapable of creating life.
    She stared at the tent flap, pretending Qurrah sat on the other side, listening. In fact, she could almost see his shadow, his form hunched with his chin resting on his knuckles, hanging on every word.
    “Your sorrow was as