Dragon Freedom (The Stone Crown Series Book 3) by Ava Richardson

Author:Ava Richardson [Richardson, Ava]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-02-25T16:00:00+00:00

The palace was unlike anywhere I had ever been – even Inyene’s Keep where I had served as Abioye’s assistant for my last period of indenture at the Masaka Mines.

For one, it had no gross, overexuberant statues and paintings of the king the way Inyene had filled her Keep with monuments to herself, where she had been depicted as already crowned with a representation of the very circlet I was wearing right now, commanding dragons and wielding her scepter like a queen of old.

But also – the palace of Torvald was far larger, grander, and had none of the austere functionalism of Inyene’s Keep. I was marched down galleries which housed giant earthenware pots with shrubs and even trees that I had no name for sitting in alcoves under arched windows of brightly colored glass. I was taken past both closed doorways bearing ironwork designs as well as open archways that looked out into more hallways and galleries, some with paintings on the walls, others with lines of tables where scribes sat or gently talked to each other. There were stairs that swept upwards in grand arcs towards more mezzanines and layers of this place, as well as stairs that wound up and down on more secretive paths. Out of one set of windows I saw another courtyard, much smaller than the one that Ymmen and I had landed in, bearing a statue of a man and woman on a rearing dragon, around which fought guards with wooden practice weapons.

And even that wasn’t the end of the wonders that I saw! It’s like there’s a whole village living in here, I thought in wonder as I looked out of yet more windows to see long and narrow glasshouses, abutted to the cream-stone walls and filled with growing things.

Finally, however, our journey took us up flights of stairs to landings, past wooden doors, and up yet more flights of steps. We passed people in white shifts, who nodded demurely as we passed, or suddenly stilled their jocular conversations.

Slaves!? My jaw immediately clenched and my stomach dropped at the sight – and yet these servants did not seem to be ill-treated, or sullen, or cowering as the House Slaves (of which I had become one, in the end) had appeared in Inyene’s Keep.

Eventually, the wide set of perfectly cut marble stairs ended in a landing bearing a rug on the floor, a set of grand double doors and two more palace guards standing on either side.

“Is the king in residence?” the captain of the guards ahead of me stated, as I looked around a little nervously to see where my god-Uncle Tamin had gone. He was right there, I saw – just a little way behind me and surrounded by his own net of palace guards. But where were Abioye and Montfre? I thought in alarm. I hadn’t seen any sign of them since I had landed here…

“The king resides,” came the gruff, ritualized reply from one of the palace guards, who

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.