EPIC: Fourteen Books of Fantasy by Terah Edun, Anna Zaires, Dima Zales, Lindsay Buroker, C. Greenwood, Jeff Gunzel, Daniel Arenson, Megg Jensen, Joseph Lallo, Annie Bellet, Edward W. Robertson, Mande Matthews, K. J. Colt, Brian D. Anderson, David Adams Read Free Book Online

in before that?”
    “The watcher before you took care of them.”
    She was afraid to ask. “Where is that watcher?”
    “In the city morgue. Died last night of multiple stab wounds,” he said, looking at her as if the question was dumb.
    Sara groaned. She supposed it was. Why else would they need a new fighter unless the old one was dead?
    The death bothered her, but she was practical. Fighters died. She could handle that and handle herself much better than whoever they had previously hired anyway. She was sure of it.
    Then Ezekiel said, “There’s a cot over there, a supply closet with materials on the far wall, and a food allowance. You can move a few things in, but don’t bring your family.”
    Sara froze. The position had come about so fast that it had never occurred to her that they would need her for more than the daylight hours.
    She turned around, muttering, “I can’t do this.”
    For the first time Ezekiel stopped fiddling with his golden beetle. As she walked toward the door he reached out a frantic hand to latch on to her upper arm.  
    “Wait,” he shouted.  
    She gave him a hardened glare and he let go of her hastily.
    “Please,” he pleaded, giving her his full attention. “What do you mean you can’t do this? You promised Cormar!”
    “I promised him nothing. I thought this job would be a few hours a day. Now you’re saying I have to live here,” she snapped. “I can’t do that.”
    He looked at her and shook his head. “If you leave, he’ll blame me.”
    “He won’t if you find a replacement,” she said.
    “Where am I supposed to find that?”
    “Oh, I don’t know, the mercenary’s guild?”
    He grimaced. “They don’t like me there.”
    “Why?”  
    “It’s confidential.”
    “Confidential enough to get your ass kicked if you walked through that guild’s doors?”
    “Yeah,” he admitted.
    “What in the world could you have possibly done to piss off the entire mercenary’s guild?” she said.
    He pushed his falling spectacles up the bridge of his nose and glared.
    “Never mind, I can take a guess.”
    He sniffed.
    She said, “Look, I want to help you. I do. But I can’t be here all day and night. I can’t live here. I have a family of my own.”
    My mother , she thought silently.
      He started trembling. “What am I going to do?”
    “Not my problem,” Sara said, walking toward the door.
    She heard a clatter from behind her. She turned around to see that Ezekiel had knocked a small acorn off of a bench. It bounced and rolled until it stopped in front of her feet. She bent down to pick it up gingerly. In her hands it had a warm muted glow of amber. It was very pretty.
    She looked up to see Ezekiel kneeling on the floor as he sat back with a look of pure resignation on his face. He looked like a man who knew he was going to die and had accepted his fate.
    Sara let out a breath slowly and grimaced.  
    “Two days,” she said.
    Ezekiel’s head snapped up. “Two days?”
    “I’ll help you for two days. We’ll go to the mercenary’s guild tomorrow and get a replacement.”
    Her voice was firm.
    “Think Cormar will accept that?”
    “I don’t know,” she replied, “but he won’t really have a choice. I only took this job for the money. But it’s not worth it to leave my mother alone. I’ll find something else.”
    Ezekiel looked a tad doubtful, but he didn’t question her. He was probably too grateful that his imminent death had a stay of execution to pester her.
    “Now,” she said, “why don’t you get back to doing whatever it is you do here?”
    He nodded and stood.
    “What are you going to do?” he said.
    “I’m going to check the exterior perimeter for weak spots in the mage field. Then I’m going over every inch of the walls to see how those thieves were sneaking in.”
      “Sounds like a good plan.”
    Sara smirked. She doubted he knew what she was looking for.
    “Ezekiel?” Sara said.
    “Yes?”
    “Catch!”  
    She threw the