Exile's Redemption: Book One of the Chronicles of Shadow by Lee Dunning

Author:Lee Dunning [Dunning, Lee]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Coming of Age, Adventure, Elves, Dark Elves, Fantasy
Publisher: Wild Hunt Press
Published: 2014-07-22T23:00:00+00:00

Once they escaped the scrutiny of the others, Kela grabbed Foxfire’s arm and dragged him toward her room. “Kela, seriously, I’m not interested,” Foxfire said, trying to pull free from her iron grip.

“Quit being an idiot and come with me,” Kela snarled. All sign of her earlier lewd behavior had evaporated, and Foxfire realized her routine at the dinner table had been a ruse to get him to leave so she could speak with him in private. He stopped resisting and followed her into her bedroom.

Once inside, Kela proceeded to check all the windows and draw the blinds. She finished by moving about the room and whispering to each of the plants cluttering up the place. Greenery covered nearly every flat surface in the room, probably Lady Swiftbrook’s attempt to make the Wood Elves feel more at home. Each plant Kela spoke to started to glow. Foxfire recognized the magic. The plants would create a sort of interference and confound anyone trying to eavesdrop on their conversation.

“You think someone is spying on us?” he asked as she finished with the final plant.

“I don’t know what to think anymore,” Kela replied. “I don’t want to take any chances though. Little of what I saw today made me feel optimistic.”

Foxfire nodded. Kela’s speech patterns had changed now that she was confident of their privacy. When around non-Wood Elves she preferred to speak in the clipped, unsophisticated manner most outsiders expected of their people. She felt it gave her an advantage—that others would underestimate her. Foxfire wasn’t sure he agreed, but he couldn’t deny her skill as an actress. She’d fooled even him this evening and he knew about her dual persona.

“So what’s so important you couldn’t wait until after dinner to talk to me? You embarrassed the hells out of me,” Foxfire said. While he admired her acting skills, he wasn’t keen on being made a fool of.

“You tell me,” Kela said. “You’re the one who babbled non-stop about ebony castles and giant glowing fungus.”

“You were listening,” Foxfire said, unable to hide his surprise.

“Of course,” Kela replied, “but more importantly I heard what you weren’t saying. Something happened during your visit down there—something awful—and you skated all around it, trying to distract me with talk of shiny rocks. You may not share my bed, but remember, I’m the one who found you half dead all those years ago and brought you into my clan. I taught you how to survive here. I know you too well—you can’t distract me with pretty stories.”

She was right, of course, Foxfire knew. When she’d found him he’d been more dead than alive. Knowing he suffered from hypothermia hadn’t done him a bit of good. A fire, lots of furs and hot drink, all provided by a primitive of the forest, had been worth more than all his years of learning. He should have known she’d see right through his false cheerfulness during dinner.

“I planned to tell you after we said our good nights to our hostess,” he said.

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.