Shadowrealm by Kemp Paul S Read Free Book Online Page A

coiled around the mind mage, supporting him.
    "We will kill Kesson Rel," Cale said, trying to ignore how light Magadon felt in his arms. "Take what he took, give it to your father, make you whole. We'll do it, Mags."
    Magadon grabbed a fistful of Cale's cloak, the gesture one of desperation. When he spoke his voice cracked but he sounded more like himself. "I need myself back, Cale. I'm falling so fast. You cannot understand..."
    Riven started to speak but Cale silenced him with a glare. To Magadon, Cale said, "We will see it through, Mags. But Riven is right. This is not your fight, not like this. You'll be a problem for us, not a help. You know that. If we need you, we'll come for you."
    Magadon pulled away and looked Cale in the face. "And if I need you?"
    Cale shook his head. "I don't understand."
    "I mean if you can't do it, if you can't take back what Kesson Rel stole, then I want you to kill me. I need you to. I can't do it myself but I can't go on this way. Either of you. Hells, get Nayan to do it. He's been watching me and thinking the same thing." Magadon ran a hand through his hair, over his horns. "My thoughts, Cale. I don't know what I might do. I can't continue this way."
    It took Cale a few moments to produce a reply. "Mags, it won't come to that." "If it does." "Mags—"
    "If it does!" the mind mage said, and tears glistened in his eyes. He looked at Riven, at his blade. "You're both killers. I know it. You know it. Tell me you'll do what needs done."
    Cale just stared, his throat tight, his mouth unable to work.
    Riven sheathed his saber and looked Magadon in the face. "I always do what needs done, Mags."
    Magadon stared at Riven, his breath coming fast. He nodded once, turned, and walked back into the temple.
    "Come, Nayan," he said to the shadows as he passed under the archway.
    When he was gone, Riven said, "What's next?"
    Cale stared after Magadon, his thoughts racing. "What?"
    "What's next, Cale?"
    "With Mags?"
    "No. With Kesson Rel. The Shadowstorm. Hells, Mags too. It's all the same."
    Cale shook his head, still unnerved. "I don't know." "You don't know?"
    Cale turned to face the assassin. "That's right. I don't know. I need some time."
    "I doubt we have much," Riven said, eyeing the archway into which Magadon had disappeared.
    Cale nodded, stuck his arm outside of the shadow of the spire and into the sun, melting away his hand. He stared at the stump.
    "No. Not much."
----
    Tamlin sat in his father's walnut rocker, in his father's study, among his father's books, books Tamlin had never read. He'd spent his life in the shadow of his father, in the shadow of his father's things.
    That was over now.
    Seldne had set and no lamps illuminated the darkness. Cool night air and dim starlight bled in through the open windows. He sat alone, thinking, the creak of the rocker on the wood floor eerily similar to Vees's screams. Tamlin smiled.
    Vees had been false to Tamlin, false to Shar. He had deserved death on her altar. Tamlin recalled with perfect clarity the cold hard feel of the dagger's hilt in his palm, the warm, sticky feel of Vees's blood on his hands. He recalled, too, the golden eyes of Prince Rivalen, aglow with the approval Tamlin had never received from his father or Mister Cale, approval that he no longer craved.
    He was his own man, and all he'd had to do to become so was give himself to Shar.
    Holding in his hand the small, black disc that Prince Rivalen had given him as a meditative aid, he confessed to Shar in a whisper what would become his Own Secret, a truth known only to himself and Shar.
    "I have never felt so afraid, or so powerful, as I did when sacrificing Vees."
    Clouds blotted out even the minimal starlight, and darkness as black as ink shrouded the room, closed in on him, pressed against his skin. A chill set the hair on his arms and the back of his neck on end, raised gooseflesh. His breath came fast. He felt the caress of his new mistress, as cold and hard as the dagger with which he