The Traitor's Heir by Anna Thayer Read Free Book Online Page A

cried one. The whole square filled with the cry.
    The procession drew closer and came within the guarding ring; Eamon could clearly see Telo and the other prisoner as they were marched past him. He could only stare.
    What could he do?
    His mind raced as ensigns began fastening the two men to the stakes with irons. The Gauntlet knew how to use bands, and Eamon saw Wystan wince as the chains came tight about his injured arm. His pain was mocked.
    Eamon’s breath quickened; the chains were fastened and the fasteners withdrew, leaving the wayfarers open to the crowd’s jeers.
    He bit his lip hard. Even if he could release the men – a task that seemed altogether impossible… he had no right to. His duty was to the Gauntlet, and he was bound to that service now in ways more powerful than he ever had been tied to Aeryn’s father. What call had he to interfere in a matter of the Master’s glory? Snakes were snakes, and traitors deserved death.
    As the drum beat into his brain Eamon tried to pull himself together. He had known Telo since he was a child; the man was the closest thing to family that he had. Besides which, Telo was the beloved father of a friend. It was true that Eamon didn’t know the stranger, but it seemed unthinkable to him that a friend of Telo’s might be an evil man.
    Captain Belaal went to the centre of the execution space and turned to address the heckling onlookers.
    â€œEnemies of the Master are enemies of the River and enemies of the people!” he called crisply. “These men were taken whilst plotting against the Master and against his glory. Their crime is against you and against him.”
    Eamon barely registered what Belaal was saying; his heart was in his mouth and a gagged feeling lay slick all along his throat. It was no enemy bound to the pyre; it was Telo… Couldn’t he speak for the innkeeper?
    Guilty instinct told him that to speak out would be to barter for a place in the pyre. Belaal had declared them enemies, and both men appeared to be enemies, bound and wretched on the stakes… Could he give his life for such men?
    He looked desperately at them and saw Telo raise his head. Their gazes met and locked; it stole Eamon’s breath.
    â€œThe men before you, people of Edesfield, are snakes: thieves, murderers, and traitors,” Belaal boomed.
    â€œThey are thieves that serve a thief.”
    All eyes turned suddenly to the innkeeper as his voice resounded: “We do not serve the throned,” Telo called. “We serve the King.”
    He spoke out with dignity that surpassed him, shattering in a single moment everything that Eamon had ever believed about him.
    A terrible silence fell. Eamon gasped and stared. The innkeeper’s eyes were still on his and Eamon could not fathom what he saw there.
    â€œSnakes! Snakes, by their own admission!” Belaal howled, his words stirring fury in the crowd. “Traitors and defilers! They will be put to death as they deserve, to the Master’s glory!”
    The crowd erupted into hot-blooded yells: “Death to the snakes!”
    Stones began flying. The innkeeper received the blows in silence; he had said all that he meant to say. Telo’s companion wept and struggled, drawing breath for a cry that was neither defiant nor desperate: “The King!”
    King . Eamon’s heart beat fast as the strange word washed through him. The River Realm had a master, not a king. He remembered his mother once telling him that the Master had taken the realm from a king in a great battle long years past – an argument late at night when his father had told her not to speak of it to their son. It had been long ago, if it had even happened, and what mattered was that the Master was sovereign in glory over the River. That was what his father had told him.
    As his thoughts churned in him he felt the strength of Telo’s gaze; the whole of time from the beginning to the end of days was