Heirs of the Fallen by James A. West

Author:James A. West
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: heroic fantasy, Coming of Age, Epic, Sword & Sorcery, high adventure, Science Fiction & Fantasy, fantasy action, Anthologies & Short Stories, Epic Fantasy Adventure, Anthologies, epic fantasy, Fantasy, fantasy action adventure, Adventure, dark, fast paced fantasy, apocacylptic, new fantasy, Literature & Fiction
Published: 2014-02-11T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 21

Leitos startled awake. Night’s black face, adorned with slashes of dim moonlight peeked through the gaps in the shutter of the room’s lone window. The raucous noise that had earlier filled Suphtra’s debauched refuge had ceased, and so too the racket upon the streets of Zuladah.

Zera, a faint lump on a pallet across the room, slumbered on. Her long, even breaths calmed him, but still he listened, waiting. Something had brought him out of a sound sleep.

The moments stretched, the silence held, and his eyelids grew heavy again. Zera murmured in her sleep, rolled over onto her back, went still. Caught between sleep and waking, Leitos heard again Suphtra’s warnings of change and coming war, leading him to wonder where he would be in a month … a year … in ten. He could scarcely imagine what the morrow would bring. As sleepiness stole over him, thoughts of the future, or anything for that matter, faded to nothing.

A rattle at the door made his eyes flare wide. Just another drunken reveler, lost and wandering. There had been many after they settled in the room Suphtra had given them for the night, enough that Zera had lost her patience and struck the last fool to barge in, knocking him unconscious. She dumped him in the hallway, and the presence of the bleeding brute had put an end to unwelcome visitors. Before falling into her blankets, Zera had made sure the door was bolted, and then shoved a heavy chest in front of it for good measure.

The latch jiggled again, softly. Instead of some grumbling fool throwing a shoulder against the door, there seemed to be an element of stealth with this would-be intruder.

Leitos sat up, straining to see. A blade, its keen edge crawling with a gleam of moonlight, pushed slowly between the gap of the door and the doorframe. It slid up, clicked almost inaudibly against the iron bolt’s shaft, then began wiggling gently in a bid to slide it loose.

“Zera,” Leitos hissed. “Wake up.”

She sighed peacefully.

Leitos flung his blankets aside and crawled over to her, cringing at ever pop and creak of the dusty floorboards. “Zera!” he said, his nose an inch from hers.

Her eyes blinked open, dancing with a muted emerald glow. “Why have you waited so long?” she murmured, as if still asleep. “Do you find me displeasing?”

Leitos stammered a senseless response, cleared his throat and started again. “There’s trouble. Someone … someone is trying to get—”

Her fingers curled around the back of his neck and his teeth clicked together, cutting off anything else he might have added. He had no mind to resist as she slowly pulled him down. A sound akin to distant wind filled his ears as their lips met, Zera’s heat mingling with his own, searing away all thoughts, all concerns. Unresisting, he pressed against her—

Zera’s eyes suddenly bulged, the sleepiness blasted away by a full, infuriated awareness. “What are you doing?” she asked coolly.

“M-me?” he babbled, trying to disentangle himself from her grasp.

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.