Valor of the Healer by Angela Highland Read Free Book Online

Her will through me ? I’m a Hawk like any other .
    Except that he wasn’t—he’d learned early on that no other Hawks had premonitions like his, and that was a problem he never wanted to examine too closely. His amulet accepted him, and those of his fellow Hawks never spoke against him, so it had always seemed safest to tell no one but his partner of the insights that sometimes came to him. The Anreulag Herself surely had to know—She saw and heard all. As long as he was able to use his insights in Her name, that was enough for Kestar. And whether through him or not, it seemed that the Voice of the Gods had given him and Celoren a purpose this night.
    “Let’s ride. If there’s anything to be found at Lomhannor Hall, we’ll find it. Or them.”
    * * *
    They found the Duke of Shalridan’s estate in chaos. As Steffen Athorsen had pledged, his name and the password got the Hawks through the front gate, though they had to present those tokens of passage three times more on the way to the Hall itself. The ragged, exasperated voices of guards rent the air, along with footsteps and hoofbeats on all sides.
    “No sign of them along the southern wall.”
    “For gods’ sake, man, get the dogs to sniff them down!”
    “Can’t, sir. The bastards poisoned ’em, every last hound in the kennel is down or dead!”
    “Eastern grounds are secure. They must’ve doubled back to the west or north.”
    By the time the Hawks reached Lomhannor’s main entrance, darkness had yielded to a predawn twilight through which torches and lanterns gleamed like will-o’-the-wisps. They teased at the edges of Kestar’s vision, and as he and Celoren dismounted in the long drive before the Hall, the dream haunted him. He knew what he had to do. Whatever his premonitions were, they led him to magic, and he was a Knight of the Hawk. To hunt down and eradicate magic from the realm was his avowed duty. Still, his clear purpose didn’t banish the veil of unreality that simple sleeplessness tugged across his thoughts—or the memory of light.
    Celoren hailed the two yawning footmen who hurried out to meet them, handed off the horses and lantern to one, and announced to the other, “Lad, we know we’re here at an awkward hour, but take word to His Grace that Celoren Valleford and Kestar Vaarsen of the Hawks request an audience at his earliest convenience.”
    Gangly with youth and clearly groggy, the footman nonetheless snapped alert at the Hawks’ stated ranks. “O-of course, m’lords,” he blurted. His feet were deft where his voice was not, and he leaped ahead to pull open the Hall’s massive oaken door. “Please come right in. The entry hall’s cold, but there’s a fire in the hearth in the front parlor—I’ll go seek out His Grace at once. Excuse me, m’lords.”
    The boy escorted them through Lomhannor’s entry hall, a room that left little impression on Kestar past a sense of intimidating space and grandeur. Tired and chilled as he was, he had far greater interest in the parlor to which the footman led them. Their guide then bolted, leaving them to wait with as much patience as they could muster. Kestar frowned at the gleam of mahogany paneling and fixtures of polished bronze. Thanks to the promised hearth-fire, the parlor wasn’t an unpleasant place to bide their time, but its furnishings echoed the message of the entry hall, power rather than welcome.
    They were still standing when the Duke of Shalridan found them. “May my Hall give safe nesting to the Hawks of the Blessed Anreulag.”
    The words—a ritual greeting offered to their Order for as long as the Hawks had existed—rang with the authority that infused Lomhannor’s walls, but with a barbed edge to their grace. Holvirr Kilmerredes stood at the parlor door, poised like a bull about to paw the earth. His cravat hung undone, and his golden hair and fine white linen shirt were disheveled. None of these things detracted from the belligerence of his eye. He looked like