Lost Continent 01 - The Charmed Sphere by Asaro Catherine

Author:Asaro, Catherine [Asaro, Catherine]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Romance, Fantasy, Adult, Science Fiction
ISBN: 9780373811113
Goodreads: 264446
Publisher: Luna Books
Published: 2004-02-01T05:00:00+00:00

He ran from the highwaymen, gasping, pain knifing his side. Someone screamed, his mother, his father…

Muller bolted upright, the velvet bed covers flying. His heart beat too fast and sweat plastered his hair to his head.

Saints almighty, that nightmare had felt so real.

After a while his pulse slowed. He slid out of bed and grabbed the robe he had thrown over a chair, pulling it on over his sleep trousers and bare chest, belting it around the waist. He could barely see in the moonlight coming in a tall window. Restless and agitated, he padded out of his suite in bare feet.

file:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/harry%20krui...atherine%20Asaro%20-%20The%20Charmed%20Sphere.html (175 of 313)20-2-2006 21:07:03

Catherine Asaro - The Charmed Sphere

With no interior windows in his suite, Muller could see nothing. Was this how Jarid had lived, in blackness? It disturbed Muller. Chime had used her gifts against her would-be kidnapper last night. As an emerald mage, she couldn't heal, which meant she couldn't injure, either, but she could make heat, and heat burned.

In the entrance foyer of his suite, faint light made the stained glass windows glow. Muller crept past a square-butler who had fallen asleep in a chair. He inched open one of the double doors—and made an unwelcome discovery. Two guards stood outside in the light of a torch on the wall, hepta-lieutenants it looked like.

Annoyed, he closed the door, quietly, so he wouldn't alert his dozing butler. After what had happened to Chime last night, it didn't surprise Muller that Brant assigned him bodyguards, too. Brant had probably ordered others to guard Iris and Jarid in the Royal Suite, too. Muller had sent guards to Chime's suite himself. But he loathed losing yet more of his privacy. It all weighed on him: his worry for Chime, his loneliness, the demands of his duties.

He should go back to bed, to rest for the morning when he would resume life, preparing to command the army. But when he thought of going on as usual, something inside of him snapped. Instead of returning to bed, he prowled through his suite, restless, until he reached the quarters for his servants. The rooms were freshly painted and spacious, with quality furnishings. He hadn't consciously planned to come here, but now that he had arrived, he knew what he wanted.

Loud snores came from Sam's bedroom. Sam had always claimed he slept silently, but his magnificent rumbles were vibrating throughout the hall. Muller snuck into a parlor outside Sam's bedroom, his footsteps drowned out by the noise. Floor-to-ceiling panels decorated the room, each about five hand-spans wide and framed by scalloped moldings. On one, he nudged aside a painting of a cottage surrounded by trees with red, gold, and yellow leaves.

The picture hid a cluster of nail holes. Moving stealthily, Muller pressed the holes in a pattern his uncle had taught him twenty years ago, just as Daron's father had taught Daron.

The panel swung inward.

Hah! Muller grinned. It had been so long since he played in these tunnels, he hadn't been certain he would remember how to reach them.

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