The Daylight War by Peter V. Brett Read Free Book Online

fire through her throat. It was as if there was some last bit of water in her lungs they were determined to expel.
    Kenevah was right. The Dama’ting Palace and the Great Bazaar weren’t so different after all, but here there was no Soli to defend her.
    Inevera thought about Manvah, and her final words about Krisha. If she could not match
sharusahk
with Melan and the other girls, she would deal as her mother had done. She would keep her eyes down and do as she was told. Work hard. Listen. Learn.
    And then, when no one was looking, she would find Melan’s storage tent and put vermin in it.

1
Arlen
333 AR Summer
30 Dawns Before New Moon
    R enna kissed Arlen again. A gentle breeze swept across the thin sheen of sweat on their bodies, cooling them as they panted on the hot night.
    ‘Been wonderin’ if you were tattooed under that cloth nappy,’ she said, nestling in next to him and putting her head on his bare chest, listening to his heart.
    Arlen laughed and put his arm around her. ‘It’s called a bido. And even
my
obsession has limits.’
    Renna lifted her head, putting her lips to his ear. ‘Maybe you just need a Warder you trust. It’s a wife’s duty to take good care of what’s in her husband’s bido. I could paint you with blackstem …’
    Arlen swallowed, and she could see his skin flush. ‘The wards would distort even as you drew them.’
    Renna laughed, wrapping him in her arms and dropping her head back to his chest.
    ‘Wonder sometimes if I’m cracked,’ she said.
    ‘How’s that?’ Arlen asked.
    ‘Like I’m still sitting in Selia Barren’s spinning room, staring off into space. Everything since has been like a dream. Wonder if my mind just took me to a sunny place and left me there.’
    ‘You’ve a poor imagination if this is your sunny place,’ Arlen said.
    ‘Why?’ Renna asked. ‘I’m rid of Harl and that corespawned farm, stronger than I ever imagined, and dancing in the naked night.’ She swept a hand around her. ‘Everything’s awash in colour and glow.’ She looked at him. ‘And I’m with Arlen Bales. How could my sunny place be anywhere else?’
    Renna bit her lip as the words rushed to them. Words she had thought to herself many times, but never dared say aloud. Part of her hesitation was fear of Arlen’s reaction, but much of it was her own doubt. All the Tanner sisters had been willing to run to the bed of the first decent man they met, but had any of them ever been in love?
    Renna had thought she loved Arlen when they were children, but she only knew him from afar, and understood now that much of what she cherished had been her imagination of what he was like in close, rather than the boy himself.
    Renna had convinced herself that she loved Cobie Fisher this past spring, but she saw the lie of that now. Cobie hadn’t been a bad sort, but if any other man had come to Harl’s farm, Renna knew she would likely have seduced him, too. Anything to get away, because anywhere was better than that farm, and any man in creation was better than her da.
    But Renna was done lying. And done biting her tongue.
    ‘Love you, Arlen Bales,’ she said.
    Her courage fled as the words left her lips and she held her breath, but there was no hesitation as Arlen tightened his arms around her. ‘Love you, Renna Tanner.’
    She exhaled, and all the fear and doubt left her.
    Charged as she was with magic, Renna found no sleep as they lay, but she would not have wished for any. Warm and safe, she wondered almost idly how she and Arlen could have been fighting a demon prince and its servants on this very spot a few hours before. It seemed a different world. A different life. For a short time, they had escaped.
    But as the sweat dried and the glow of passion faded, the real world began to creep back into focus, terrible and frightening. They were surrounded by the bodies of dead corelings, black ichor splattered all over the clearing. One, the shape-shifting demon, still wore her form, its head