StrategicSurrender by Elizabeth Lapthorne Read Free Book Online Page B

“But I don’t know how comfortable I
am irrevocably destroying something that belongs to the Tribunal. They have a
tendency to be twitchy and paranoid at the least little thing, I don’t even
want to imagine how they would react to peons like us burning a
manuscript that had been given into our care.”
    “Come on, Josh,” Kiera scoffed lightly, “how many times have
you complained to me about how people ask for your advice and then ignore it,
or about how much you wish you could get out there and do something?
This is your chance. Morgan has asked us to do something powerful, something
for the side of good . If we were down at the local bar, running through
hypotheticals, and I said to you, ‘You find an incredibly evil manuscript with
an earth-shatteringly bad time-magic ritual in it, what do you do?’ After you’d
turned back time so Becky Lomaz would give her virginity to you on the eve of
the junior prom, you can’t tell me you’d say that you wouldn’t simply destroy
it?”
    “If we had just happened to discover it, sure,” Josh agreed
crankily, “I might be more inclined to watch it burn. But we didn’t ‘just
discover’ it. The Tribunal owns it. It’s not ours to burn.”
    Kiera frowned, torn slightly by his decent point.
    “Wanting to get out there and do something, craving to make
a difference in our world is one thing,” Kiera finally said as she turned to
face Hayden, uncertain again. “Being prepared to burn one of the Tribunal’s
grimoires, you have to admit, is a much bigger step.”
    “Exactly!” Josh agreed strongly. Looking slightly abashed at
the manner in which his voice had risen, he lowered his tone before he
continued. “Look, Hayden, I think there are plenty of alternatives we can
follow that don’t include breaking what has to be a dozen federal
crimes.”
    Hayden merely crossed his arms over his chest and raised an
eyebrow. Kiera’s heart sped up at the sight of him and she had to mentally
chastise herself for letting her mind wander during such an important
discussion.
    “Okay, I’m listening,” Hayden said with a faint hint of
mockery. “Name one other course of action we could take that you can say with
complete honesty won’t lead to serious repercussions and outright danger to the
mass population out there.”
    “Well…” Josh stumbled slightly. He looked at Kiera with a
pathetically pleading expression. Kiera snorted but, wanting to get off the
fence and decide one way or the other, closed her eyes and thought furiously. Mentally
ran through the threads she had perceived surrounding the manuscript.
    The seconds ticked by and she became more and more anxious.
After a minute or more she stole another quick glance at the folder on the floor,
cracked open a small amount of her magic and studied the file intently. She
remained focused completely on the threads she could “see” and this time she
was able to look for a few minutes before once again closing her talent down
and admitting defeat.
    “Damn,” she swore softly. As before, each and every possible
future thread she perceived led in varying ways to the manuscript falling into
the wrong hands and being misused for malicious purposes.
    “So…?” Hayden prodded her. Joshua leaned forward in his seat,
obviously very eager to discover her thoughts. Kiera frowned and tried hard to
think of an alternative suggestion to offer that might help save their skin
from the wrath of the Tribunal.
    “I’m thinking,” she insisted weakly. “This certainly isn’t
something I just want to jump into rashly. Nothing is currently leaping out at
me but let me just think this through.”
    Kiera took a few deep, steadying breaths as she hovered on
the edge of throwing her fortunes in with Hayden in a far more dangerous manner
than she could have believed twenty minutes before when they had been
passionately kissing and necking like a couple of teenagers.
    “Okay…so my main concern about burning the