Light of the Dragon (The Breath of the Divine Book 3) by Susan Trombley

Author:Susan Trombley [Trombley, Susan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2015-09-10T04:00:00+00:00

***

Beyond the sheltering walls of the temple gardens, past numerous fields filled with cattle, lay a farmhouse falling into disrepair. The former residents of the place rotted in the root cellar, although the people in the small close-knit village had no knowledge of that. Instead, they believed that their former neighbors lost too much on their failing farm and packed up and moved, selling their share of the farmhold to the current residents.

Those residents, four men and two women, kept to themselves which many of the villagers appreciated since they seemed a bit dangerous. They wore all black, including black chipbark hats. The color must have been dyed into the bark which was normally a blond color. The villagers couldn’t imagine why anyone would bother, but the expressions on the faces of the strangers didn’t encourage questions.

Still, the newcomers, who'd only been living at the farmhouse for a little over three years, didn’t cause any trouble, kept mostly to themselves, and paid their lease on time to the nobleman who owned the property. The village gossips could not determine where they got the money, since the fields lay fallow. From time to time, the neighbors might see one or the other of the women, hard-eyed, stringy-muscled wretches, working desultorily in a small kitchen garden as they rode past the farmhouse on their wagons or carts.

There was much the villagers didn’t know about the strangers. Obsidious, who called himself Sid now to fit in better with the locals, may have been the youngest member of the six, but he was the second highest ranking. He was Chastan’s lieutenant. Chastan had a plan. Sid had his own plans. He would not serve Chastan forever.

Standing on the porch of the dilapidated farm house, his thoughts lingered on how much he hated this place. He despised the waving fields of grain, the droning insects, and the chirruping birds. He’d grown up in a temple deep underground where he’d been initiated into blood rites at seven. Given to the Order of Sol by his parents to be forged in the crucible of Sol’s glorious torments, Sid had suffered the agonies of initiation at a far younger age than most disciples. By the age of ten, he’d taken his first life, killing the priest who’d been in charge of initiating him. The other priests recognized that Sol’s emptiness filled the boy in far greater measure than any other initiate, and he rapidly progressed within the ranks of the faithful.

Now the last remnants of their once-great order had to hide in this innocuous place. Garacilla’s assassins still hunted down, and killed, any members of their order. The Vanguardian queen's reach extended even here in Empiron, although her agents would be certain that Empiron’s king remained unaware of their presence.

Even wearing sable, the color of the empty Void, to honor Sol was a dangerous risk, but one that Chastan, as acting high priest, insisted on. As far as Sid was concerned, Sol didn’t give a damn what his followers wore, as long as they served him well, but Chastan was much older and set in his ways.

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