Fires of the Desert (Children of the Desert Book 4) by Leona Wisoker Read Free Book Online Page A

another time, that might have made him laugh.
    He slammed through another door into a broad central hallway. Groups of armed guards stood at either end. The front ranks held spears and swords; behind them, bowmen had arrows nocked and ready. Clearly they thought him trapped. Whichever way he went, the other side would send arrows through his back.
    His grin widened.
    Even as the archers’ hands drew back in the tiniest shift, he dropped out of human time into other- perception and flung himself forward. Everything froze around him, each human in-breath taking multiple heartbeats, plenty of time in which to destroy them all—
    —and the air filled with a fine spray of white dust that must have been dropped from above moments before, just as he set his shoulder to the now shattered door. Stibik— stepping elsewhere wasn’t possible through a cloud of that. Gods, they’d thrown a lot of it into the air—he could feel it settling like a million insect bites against every bit of exposed skin, slowing him, pulling him sharply out of other- perception and back into a nearly human speed.
    Deiq spun, eyes shut, and desperately tried to launch himself back into the room, to get the remnants of that door between him and the dust—
    —a net fell over him—
    —a hard blow to his stomach drove the air from his lungs, forcing him to suck in a fresh breath of stibik-laden air—
    —and everything hazed, twisted, and went black.

Chapter Six
    Eredion had been given a chance, at one point, to walk away from it all. To leave Bright Bay, to just keep going, on into the northlands, start over again where nobody knew him as Eredion Sessin, ambassador to Bright Bay. Where nobody expected anything of him. Rainy days like this tended to remind him of that, and to make him question the wisdom of staying.
    He sat in his favorite chair and stared out the fine glass windows at the dreary day outside. Just the window itself—a recent installation by, of course, Sessin artisans—reminded him of things he didn’t want to think about. He’d sat here many times over the last few years, staring at sun and rain alike through what had been thickly bubbled squares of glass, his view of himself as distorted and gloomy as his view of the outside.
    Replacing the glass had only helped the latter.
    Slender hands pressed lightly on his shoulders from behind.
    “You’re looking sad again, my lord,” Wian said in a low voice. She released his shoulders and came around to settle on his knee.
    “I have a lot to be sad about,” Eredion said, then snorted. “And now I’m sounding juvenile.” He sighed, twining his fingers through hers, and forced a smile.
    “True,” she said, “on both points.” She grinned.
    Her mischievous cheer lifted his own mood, and his smile turned more genuine. “You’ve changed quite a bit in the last few days, Wian.”
    Her smile flickered and dimmed. “Yes, I suppose I have,” she said, and turned her head to stare out the window. “He’s still out there, isn’t he?”
    “Kippin? Yes. We haven’t found him yet. Or Kam.” There hadn’t even been any clue as to which way they’d gone, which worried Eredion more than a little; but surely they wouldn’t have been so stupid as to stay in Bright Bay?
    Studying Wian’s still profile, he decided she reminded him of a wild bird perched on his knee and ready to burst into flight at any moment. Her dark hair, now neatly trimmed and pulled back into more than a dozen thin braids with silver threads woven into each, still hung well past her shoulders. The bruises had faded from her face and body, leaving only the occasional patch of yellow or tracery of blue.
    There was no removing the network of scars Rosin—and later, Kippin—had left over years of abuse. Wian’s whippings had been far worse than Alyea’s single episode; her back was a mass of scars layered over scars layered over scars.
    The marks Kippin had left on Lord Alyea, in stark contrast, would already