The Broken Blade by Anna Thayer

Author:Anna Thayer
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Lion Hudson
Published: 2015-08-29T04:00:00+00:00

A heavy darkness fell on the city that night. The lights of the Serpent’s camp across the River gave back bright answer to Dunthruik’s grim walls.

The throne room was long and empty when Eamon knelt wearily in it. He hid his grief as well as he could, but he wondered whether, as they watched him, the Master’s eyes discerned it.

“Rise, son of Eben.”

Eamon rose. “The city is ready, Master. It will deploy at dawn.”

“It is a long-awaited watch that comes this night, Eben’s son,” the throned told him, and then looked at him. He rose and crossed the dais to where Eamon stood before reaching out to touch his face. “You, too, were long-awaited.”

Eamon searched the Master’s face in confusion. Smiling softly, Edelred leaned forward and powerfully kissed his brow.

“Rest, Eben’s son,” he said. “Much will be accomplished with the dawn.”

So it was that, as the moon rose, Eamon returned to his quarters. Supper had been laid for him but he could not face it. With all that he had lived through that day his heart felt terrible and empty, and all his efforts vain. His very self seemed lost in that vacuum and, as he gazed at the table before him, the weight of his long months in Dunthruik came to rest heavily on his shoulders.

Cartwright came to clear the table and started when he found the food untouched. He looked at Eamon with concern. “My lord?”

“I cannot eat.” Eamon drove his hands over his eyes and then gazed accusingly at his servant. “Did you know it?” he demanded.

Cartwright blinked. “Know what, my lord?”

“Did you know that your lady Alessia was with child?”

Cartwright remained very still for a moment and his face paled.

“I did not know it,” the servant said, “but I would believe it.”

“Would you also believe, Mr Cartwright, that she…” Eamon’s tongue stuck in his throat as fresh rage ran through him. “You were right, Mr Cartwright,” he managed at last. “She stayed in this city. She was held by the Right Hand, and she…” He thought of her pale, beautiful flesh, prone before the torments of a Right Hand.

“What happened, my lord?” Cartwright whispered.

Eamon looked at him. The thoughts were too terrible for him to bear. His jaw quivered. Desperately he struggled with his violent tongue but he could not hold it.

“She killed it to injure me!”

With a cry of vile rage he tore up to his feet. He seized the table, and setting against it every force of muscle and of limb, he hurled it down. With a tremendous crack, all that was on the table was cast asunder and the stones of the Right Hand’s chamber rang with a splintering roar.

Eamon did not hear it. His tongue, stirred past all endurance, fell to curses. To think of her, laid open before the Right Hand…

His curses dwindled to wrathful sobs and his knees lost their strength. Sinking back upon his chair, he laid his head in his hands and wept.

If she had been tortured, she had deserved it.

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