Son of Fire by Forrest K.B

Author:Forrest, K.B. [Forrest, K.B.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

High up in a tower, in a remote part of the Great Castle, Cunaxa the Pure studied the documents laid out on her low table. She lowered the petition she had been reading and peered at the door on the far side of the large room.

“Sanatruk?” Cunaxa called out. She had an uneasy feeling about Sanatruk’s absence. She had learned to trust her feelings over the long, hard years that she endured being the unwilling wife of Emperor Hergor.

She got up from her polished table, the neat stacks of scrolls shifting slightly as she strode past them.

The girl had gone off to fetch her some cool wine a half-hour ago. The palace was big, but the girl had lived here all her life, so there was no chance of her being lost.

Then what had happened to her? Cunaxa could think of too many unpleasant possibilities.

The whisper of her skirts echoed in the high, vaulted corridors as she hurried along. The servants always made themselves scarce these days and she didn’t blame them, since that was quite often what she wished she could do herself.

She reached the end of the hall and started down a stone staircase, remembering how she and her mother had skipped down these same steps a thousand times before to pick flowers in the courtyard below. The ghosts of their laughter floated to her now as she paused on the dark stairs. The servants had not lit the candles, but reaching out, her hand guided by memory, she touched the wall to her right and ran her finger along the crack between the great stones.

She hurried along down the stairs, pausing at the once stunning fountain that now gurgled sullenly in its algae filed bowl. Her mother had once let her jump into the fountain and had even come in after her, laughing in her finery. The gardens were quiet now. Surrounding the fountain were ill-tended plants, but their old glory still glimmered, waiting to burst forth again. She walked along the wide, white stone path that curved through her mother’s gardens, the worry growing in her mind. She would have been relieved to see her maid seated beneath one of the fanciful trees, or near the roses, flirting with her fiance, but Sanatruk was nowhere to be found.

Suddenly she heard a distant crash of glass and a shriek from the dining wing. Harsh male laughter closely followed it. She recognized those voices. It was quite a distance off and she hurried toward it, feeling like she was running under water. Her concern had blossomed into full-blown fear. It was the kind of fear she had lived with for over fifteen years. Another scream tore though the peace of the morning.

She flew through the wide hall and flung the heavy dining room doors open with a crash, noting that the doorman was not at his post. She soon found out why.

Before her, seated at her father’s dining table, were Emperor Hergor and his pack of simpering, self-indulgent nobles.

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