Touch of Iron (The Living Blade #1) by Timandra Whitecastle Read Free Book Online

no!”
    Owen shook his head. “You don’t understand. I don’t want to leave, Nora.”
    Nora stared at her brother and focused on just breathing for a moment. Anger churned her stomach and burned in her throat.
    Owen shook his head once more, then looked at her beseechingly. “Where do you want to go anyway?”
    “Owen, please!”
    “You were the one who wanted to run away, remember?”
    “Not like this! Not with these people! We’ll find another way, our own way. Maybe go south, wherever you want to go.”
    “I want to go to the Temple of the Wind. I want to become a pilgrim.” Owen looked up at Prince Bashan. “And I want to help you find the Blade.”
    Bashan nodded. “I’m listening. Keep going.”
    Owen licked his lips.
    “There’s a library at the Temple of the Wind. But it’s not an ordinary library of books and scrolls. In the ancient world it was a collection of memories. If Kandar ever wrote down where he was headed with the Blade, that knowledge would be stored there. I could help you. I’m a scholar at heart, a scrivener by schooling. And I’m wasted in Owen’s Ridge. Let me come with you. And let my sister go home if she wants to. Unharmed.”
    The tips of the swords were gone.
    “Fine. You have a deal.” Bashan sheathed his sword. “She goes, you stay. Say your goodbyes quickly before I change my mind. Shade, look after our new recruit.”
    “Yes, lord.”
    Nora scanned Owen’s face. What she saw in his eyes made her heart break.
    “You can’t do this,” she said.
    He shrugged, then scratched the back of his head.
    “I’m sorry. But I was trying to tell you all this time. You just weren’t listening. I don’t want to leave.”
    “Owen, these are not good people.”
    “The prince has a just cause. He should have been emperor. If it weren’t for the prophecy of the Blade, he would be.”
    Nora hit the ground with her fists.
    “The prince is a fucking jerk and isn’t fit to rule. Look at the scumbags he’s with. Murderers, thieves, mercenaries. They’d slit their own mother’s throat if they thought it’d bring them coin.”
    “Careful, aye?” The young man called Shade still stood behind her, but Nora didn’t care. She just talked louder.
    “What? It’s true! Owen, these guys torched Moorfleet without so much as a second thought because of a whiny, petulant princeling who acts as though he’s still four years old and the world belongs to him. Well, hello, reality. It doesn’t work that way. Stories are stories. Legends are legends. And there’s no such thing as a magical blade that imbues you with the right to rule.”
    “Shh, Nora!”
    “Don’t shh me! You’re better than this. You know better, Owen. You yourself carved the runes on those daggers and swords we made for those pompous pricks from Dernberia. What did you write? ‘My wielder thinks I’m magical’?”
    Owen clenched his teeth. “This is different.”
    “No, it’s not,” Nora yelled, and her voice broke. She wiped her nose on her sleeve. “Don’t you see? Open your eyes.”
    He crossed his arms and studied her face as she cuffed away the tears.
    “My eyes are open. It’s you with the illusion that you can just carry on with your life as though nothing happened. Maybe this is your last chance. Come with me. Do yourself a favor and don’t go back to the Ridge.”
    His voice was hard and tense. She stared at her brother’s face. His eyes became her focal point, the fixed star. If she blinked now, she’d spin into the darkness.
    “Oh gods. You believe it too, don’t you?”
    “I don’t have to believe. I saw often enough.”
    She rose slowly, seeking to steady herself by his gaze.
    “What did you see? You saw nothing. There was nothing to see.”
    Owen turned his head and looked across the river where the men were gathering. The world fell silent, and Nora took a breath as though it were her last.
    “Yeah, well. If you’re going to be all self-righteous, maybe you shouldn’t have