The Call of the Ancients: An Epic Medieval Fantasy (The Chronicles of Nadine Book 3) by Kim Vermaak

Author:Kim Vermaak [Vermaak, Kim]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Yakhal
Published: 2021-08-14T00:00:00+00:00

Thirty-Four

Night Terrors

L

ord Zayne asked the servants to bring his evening meal and an extra blanket to the child’s room. The rich, meaty aroma of the dish held no appeal for him. He watched Meira as she slept, the soft whimpers that accompanied her dreams tearing at his heart. She was just a child, a mere whisper of a girl. Despite her poor appetite, he had watched the colour return to her cheeks, like a wilting bloom revived by a drink of rain. And he had felt the faintest increase of pressure as he held her hand on the way to school. Meira had not yet called him Pappa Zee, as he had offered, but he sensed a softening in her eyes when he called her name. When she shivered, he offered his cloak for extra protection and when she dropped her poppet; he picked it up, cleaned off its dress, and gave it a small kiss on the forehead to ease the poppet’s pain. His soothing of the poppet always brought a hint of a curve to Meira’s lips, but never an actual smile.

Lord Zayne always chose just the right colour dress to show off her beautiful green eyes, and he promised extra coins to servants if they could get her hair to shine like a polished mirror. He knew she would be a rare beauty when she reached womanhood and, despite his mission, he felt a protectiveness towards her that went against his better instincts. Lord Zayne told himself that it was to protect his asset. But he wondered about the future.

He thought about his boyhood home. His mother had favoured the soft white blooms of jasmine which had grown outside her window. It would be several weeks before the lingering fragrance would permeate through the corridors of his manor. Perhaps, if he could leave the girl with his oldest sister, but Lord Zayne knew he could never go back to his home. Too much time had passed. He had seen too much and done too many things.

Just one wrong acquaintance could take a man down a path from which he would never return.

But to take advantage of a child, that was an unspeakable cruelty. It sat heavily with him how children were mere pawns to the decisions of adults. This was a distasteful assignment, but he knew what became of men who crossed King Radolf. Again, he thought about the spikes on the castle wall and shuddered.

One wrong turn.... His thoughts returned to the day that he met his tutor. He was an inexperienced boy, crying on the side of the road next to his father’s body.

The bandits had stripped them of all that they had, and he could not save his kin. It had been his first trip with his father, a merchant. But he had ignored his father’s endless ramblings along the way, and after the bandits left, he had no clue of which way to travel to get back home. The bandits had left the

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