The Dark Remains by Mark Anthony Read Free Book Online Page B

perhaps you’re simply a bad poet,” Aryn said. “After all, I bested you once.”
    Tharkis scurried toward the baroness, his rubbery limbs tangling and untangling as he moved. “But we have not finished our game yet, my sweet. I’ll speak you your poem when next we do meet.”
    Before Aryn could reply, the fool sprang backward in a series of flips. Then, with a chiming of bells, he scampered through a door and was gone.
    There was a long silence, broken when Durge cleared his throat.
    “I have been thinking,” the knight said seemingly to no one in particular. “Lord Falken and Lady Melia can offer both better company and better protection than I. Perhaps now that they are here it is time I return to Stonebreak. It has been long since I have seen personally to the affairs of my manor.”
    Aryn’s blue eyes went wide. “Oh, Durge, you mustn’t even make a jest of leaving!” She rushed forward and grasped his left hand with hers. “I am certain your reeve can look after your manor well enough. Please—you must promise me that you will stay with us.”
    The Embarran hesitated, then nodded, clasping rough fingers around her smooth hand for a moment. “As you wish, my lady.”
    Aryn beamed, but Durge’s careworn face appeared more deeply lined than ever. Lirith didn’t need to steal his thoughts as she had in the Barrens to know that this gesture had cost him. Lirith wished she had never learned of the knight’s feelings for Aryn. And sometimes she wished she could tell the young woman. Perhaps there was a chance.…
    But no, that was foolish. Durge was over twice Aryn’s age. And while such marriages happened often enough, they were arranged for land, money, and alliance, not for love. Durge would never make his feelings plain to Aryn. And Lirith had sworn she would never tell.
    Yet it was more than this that seemed to weigh on him; Durge seemed grimmer than ever today. Had something happened to him? Or was it that, after the tangle she had glimpsed that morning, nothing seemed quite right.
    “Come on,” Falken said. “The queen granted us her hospitality, and I’m ready to take advantage of it. Let’s get breakfast.”

7.
    The next day, witches began to arrive at Ar-tolor.
    Aryn first suspected something was happening as she sat in her chamber, taking breakfast. A tingling danced along her spine, and—compelled for a reason she couldnot name—she set down her spoon, rose, and moved to the window. In the bailey below, a rider clad in a green cloak and hood sat upon a black horse. A guardsman reached out to help the rider dismount, but instead the traveler looked up and the hood slipped back, revealing a cascade of gold hair. The rider was a woman past her middle years, but still possessed of a powerful beauty.
    Evidently the guardsman was as surprised as Aryn, for he stepped back. The woman on the horse turned her head, as if searching. Then her gaze locked on the window through which Aryn watched, and a smile touched her lips. For a moment Aryn gazed into sea-green eyes. Then, with a gasp, she hurried from the window. It seemed like the woman in the bailey had seen her watching. But that was impossible.
    After breakfast, Aryn went in search of Lady Tressa, for there was much to do before the dark of the moon and the start of the coven, which—from what scant knowledge Aryn had been able to glean—was to span four days. She was near the entry gallery of the castle when she caught a scent like nightflowers. This was odd not because it was midday, but because for all its beauty—and like all castles Aryn had ever been in—Ar-tolor smelled more like a privy than a garden. She turned in time to see a tall, slender figure all in black vanish between two columns. Aryn hurried after but found nothing save a scattering of white, fragrant petals upon the stone floor.
    It was after midday when Aryn finally finished counting all the candles stored in the castle’s cellar. It seemed an odd task, but that was