Rise of the Seven by Melissa Wright Read Free Book Online Page A

didn’t have much taste left for
festivities. I leaned down, lifted the glass in salute to my guard,
and turned to walk casually from the room.
    When I reached the corridor, I allowed myself
to breathe again. I walked toward the study, thinking of the faces
of my guard, sprayed red and numb with shock. I kept walking, past
my chambers, past the commonly used rooms, up the stairs and out
the window to my perch on the roof. The wind was cutting, but I
stood to face it.

    “ Tell me that wasn’t your
plan,” Chevelle said from behind me.
    I choked on a laugh. I’d been standing in the
wind so long my eyes watered and my nose and cheeks burned. I
turned to look at him, relieved to find him clean and out of
uniform. He untied his cloak and stepped up behind me on the small
platform. When he reached around to blanket me with the cloak, the
warmth felt so good I held his arm to wrap around me. I felt him
relax into the embrace and I snuggled my face into the cloak to
thaw. I breathed in his scent and then straightened, hoping he
hadn’t noticed.
    “ I had a good plan,” I said
as we stared out into the night. An agreeable rumble vibrated in
his chest. It reminded me of a purring cat and I smiled. “I don’t
suppose it matters now.”
    “ They were convinced,” he
assured me.
    Chevelle wasn’t like me. He possessed a
nearly unshakable calm and considerable patience. After all we’d
been through, there was no question he would have taken revenge on
Asher. Everyone knew that. What they couldn’t guess was the
backlash it would cause. What traps Asher had set for him. If he
were to fail, what that would have meant for me. If he were to
succeed, what that would have meant for the realm. Chevelle had
understood that. He’d kept me from acting rashly, a reckless
vengeance that would have likely gotten me killed. I would have
retaliated with passion. He could wait.
    And he was right. There was a difference
between courage and suicide. Honor wasn’t much good to the
dead.
    “ Chevelle?”
    “ Hmm,” he purred. I
shivered. He could think it was from cold.
    “ How did you know I’d kill
Asher?”
    He stiffened. “We didn’t.”
    I felt my face contort, but couldn’t decipher
what they’d actually planned when we’d confronted him among his
guard.
    Chevelle sighed. “When we found that he’d set
bindings on you, we had to allow him to live.”
    They’d made a deal.
    “ He’d been collecting new
powers. He’d learned to create a binding that would not release
upon his death.”
    Which explained why Chevelle had been
studying bindings instead of just hunting the council.
    “ When council attacked, it
set so much more into motion. Francine was to be taken, and you,
but Junnie stepped in. She forced their hand with an arrangement no
one could refuse by council law. Council bound you both, for their
safety, and permitted you to live. Under their watch.”
    “ I can’t remember,” I said.
“Everything else. But not the bindings. Was it long?”
    “ No, the entire process was
very quick. When council descended, Asher set his spell and ran.
And then you were gone.” He faltered, then corrected. “In the
village.”
    I had been gone. And it had seemed a very
long time.
    “ He watched you, to be
certain you weren’t fundamentally affected by the castings.
Apparently, he saw enough of your old self there to approve. Once
council was disposed of, we expected him to release you. He wanted
you back as his second, under his control.”
    “ So, when I stabbed
him...”
    “ Not exactly the
plan.”
    “ Wow.”
    A short strangled laugh escaped him, the kind
mingled with relief and disbelief. We sat in silence for a few
moments, recalling Asher’s last words. The words that would release
the bindings. The words that would direct his power to me. If it
hadn’t been for some messed-up sense of pride on his part, I’d
still be bound. Trapped in my own mind. Or dead.
    “ There is something you
should know, Frey.”
    I