Revelation (Rai Kirah) by Carol Berg Read Free Book Online Page A

there. You don’t need to get up. I’ll take care of the cleaning . . . and I promise I’ll do it right. Rest for a while.” I owed her a great deal more than an hour’s ritual.
    For once she didn’t argue, though she didn’t sleep, either. She watched my every move as I spent an hour cleaning my weapons, the floor, myself, and even the firepit, carefully reciting each word of the invocations designed to close off any remaining links to the still-active demon.
    “So you do know them,” she said as I finished the last words of the endless closing chant used after a lost battle.
    “And they don’t burn my tongue or cause my eyes to burn demon-blue. But I would really prefer to be asleep.” I did not retreat to the pallet laid out for me in one of the inner rooms, but stretched out in the shade of the western steps and slept for twelve hours straight. I dreamed of killing.
     
    We refused two calls on the next day, though we still did not leave the temple. We slept. Food appeared beside us. We ate and went back to sleep. On the second morning from the lost battle, Ysanne came to talk to Fiona of portals and shaping strategies and other Aife’s business. I did not join them, but sat on the western steps and ate the meat and biscuits and fruit that had been left there for me. When their voices fell silent, I glanced over my shoulder. Ysanne was looking at me through the shady expanse of the temple, her face as expressionless as the stone columns that framed her. I turned back to my breakfast. I didn’t see her again before she left.
    “The Queen says there’s another runner on the way,” Fiona said from behind me. “I told her we were well rested. Was I right?”
    I worked hard to make sure my voice was composed. “I’m ready.” I wondered if I would ever partner with Ysanne again. I could not imagine it.
    “She says the Searcher is in Karn’Hegeth and reports that there is strife among the Derzhi.” Fiona gloated in the report, as if our safety and security were not dependent on the strength of Aleksander’s empire. Whatever people had to say of the Derzhi—and I had as good a reason to hate them as any—it had been the stability of their empire that had allowed us to work successfully for hundreds of years. Aleksander’s guarantee of protection would keep us safe for as long as his family ruled. I had spent more than enough time arguing those points with Fiona months before. But, in fairness, Fiona and the others knew only that the Prince had allowed us to return to Ezzaria in thanks for our help with the Khelid. Ysanne and Catrin alone knew that Ezzaria had been Aleksander’s personal gift to me. None of them could understand the ties that bound the Prince and me.
    The runner came shortly. This was a strange case, she said, before going into her trancelike state and relaying the message from our distant countrywoman. The Searcher’s message was garbled, but it seemed quite urgent. All we could gather was that the victim had gone mad and abandoned his wife and children abruptly. With only that much, Fiona and I made our preparations, and as the sun reached the zenith, leaving the temple floor in shadow, I touched the Aife’s hands and began the strangest journey in my experience.

CHAPTER 4
     
     
     
    “I am the Warden, sent by the Aife, the scourge of demons, to challenge you for this vessel. Hyssad! Begone, it is not yours.” The demon did not reveal itself, so I had to go hunting.
    Such an odd place. Beneath a spinning sky of pale blue and white lay a garden. Every variety of flower, herb, and shrub was growing in it, lush, green, thick-leafed, splashed with every color nature could produce. Growing, fading, dying, then growing again until I was slightly nauseated by the speed of the changes. I strode through the flowers toward the trees—a forest of impossible variety: tall, massive ashes and oaks, flowering fruit trees, spike-leafed nagera trees, like those that grew near the deep wells