The Fanged Crown: The Wilds by Jenna Helland Read Free Book Online

sister at the window. Outside, the sun had set even though it wasn’t even dinnertime. It always got dark early on wintry afternoons, but that night the air was thick and white, almost as if it was snowing heavily. But there were no flakes falling from the sky, just light drops of water that moistened Ysabel’s palm as she held her hand open against the night air.
    “It looks … odd,” Teague said uneasily. Peering out into the night, his thin face looked pinched with concern. It was so unlike him to worry about anything.
    “Who’s the baby now?” Ysabel teased. “Come on! Let’s find Cousin Daviel.”
    “Why are you looking for him?” Teague wanted to know. “He doesn’t want to play hide-and-seek.”
    “Master Cardew wants to see him,” Ysabel said. She didn’t like Declan Cardew, the haughty solider who served as Teague’s chaperone. Cardew never talked to her. He acted like she didn’t even exist.
    “What’s wrong with Cardew?” Teague asked her as they left the sitting room and padded down the cold flagstones to the spiral staircase that led to the kitchen area in the basement of the palace.
    “Nothing,” Ysabel said sullenly.
    “Bella …” Teague began as he noticed his sister’s wounded foot and the little blood tracks she’d left all along the corridor behind them. “You really hurt yourself! Go get a bandage. I’ll find Daviel.”
    Ysabel stopped as if she were considering his offer, a look of serious concentration on her little face. She knew Teague thought she was slow, but she was really just careful. And she liked to irritate him.
    “All right,” she finally agreed, smiling at him brightly when he crossed his arms in frustration. “But when you find him, bring him to our quarters so we can get ready for dinner together.”
    “Are we still having dinner, even without Mother and Auntie Anais?”
    “Oh, yes,” Ysabel replied as she padded down the corridor in the direction of the infirmary. “Master Cardew said we had to.”

CHAPTER SEVEN
    29 Ky thorn, the Year of the Ageless One
    (1479 DR) Chiclt
    Harp and his men rowed the short distance through the choppy waves to the beach. He watched Boult working the right oar and grinned broadly. He’d been traveling with the most infamous killer in Tethyrian history, and had never known it.
    Cardew had framed Boult for masterminding the entire massacre at the Winter Palace, with political implications that still resounded throughout Tethyr. Knowing Boult and his character, Harp decided there was a vicious irony to the situation. Life was such a travesty. A man had to learn to laugh about it, or he’d burn down the world for what it did to people who did nothing to deserve such pain. As if Boult could read his mind, the dwarf shot him an annoyed look and shook his head in disgust.
    The skiff crested a wave, and Boult glowered at Harp over the top of his oar. “You’re a goat, Harp. You’re the son of a goat, and your children will be little, bleating goats,” Boult said crossly.
    Harp laughed, ignoring the surprised look on Verran’s face, who had no idea where Boult’s outburst had come from.
    There were five of them in the skiff. Kitto and Boult were going with him into the jungle. Harp wanted to bring Verran onshore too, just because he wanted to keep an eye on him. At seventeen, the boy was a year older than Kitto, but he still had that wide-eyed look of most youths—scared, but curious. With his round cheeks and big blue eyes, he looked as if he’d just crawled out of a schoolroom. Verran was almost a head taller than Harp, with a stockier and more muscular physique. Most men of that size dominated any situation they were in. But Verran, who was almost as big as Cenhar, never seemed to know what to do with his body or how to use his commanding presence.
    Cenhar and Llywellan had been with him on the Marderward. Both were older and capable in a fight, but Llywellan had the edge when it came to thinking, which made him a