Wrath of Empire by Brian McClellan

Author:Brian McClellan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction / Fantasy / Epic, Fiction / Fantasy / Historical, Fiction / Fantasy / Action & Adventure, Fiction / Fantasy / Military, Fiction / War & Military
Publisher: Orbit
Published: 2018-03-06T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 33

Vlora caught sight of Prime Lektor again three days after speaking with Taniel in the Yellow Creek jail.

Finding him was purely luck. Vlora was returning from another fruitless morning of searching the nooks and crannies of the mountains surrounding Yellow Creek. The newsies on her normal route had sold out of their papers already, so she went out of her way to find a street corner where the boys still had some stock. She had just found a paper and folded it over to read while she walked when her gaze swept across the familiar profile.

Prime sat outside a café in the one small area of town that could be considered posh—if one squinted a little. It was midday, and he was enjoying a coffee, biscuits, and a newspaper while he faced away from the sun.

Vlora forced herself to act casual, turning slowly to cut across traffic and heading around to a nearby storefront where she could get a good look at his face without crossing his line of sight. Once she could clearly see the inkvine birthmark that cut across the left side of his face, she knew he was definitely Prime Lektor.

Vlora waffled. A part of her wanted to walk over, pull up a seat, and ask Prime straight out why he was here. It was a foolish thought, one that she had no problem talking herself out of, and instead she circled around behind him and took a seat on a nearby stoop where she could keep an eye on him over her newspaper.

She only half read the articles as she watched the back of Prime’s head. The news was all two weeks old, and was filled with rampant speculation regarding the war, Dynize military might, rumors of Lindet’s assassination, and more. Nothing looked reliable and it frustrated her to no end, so she turned her attention purely on Prime.

One of the odd quirks of sorcery was that a powder mage could sense a Privileged, but a Privileged could not sense a powder mage. Vlora did not know if the same rule applied to the Predeii, but considering that Prime didn’t just turn around and incinerate her, she assumed that it did.

The immediate problem was that, while she definitely recognized Prime Lektor, she could not sense his sorcerous presence. He was cloaking himself from any such scrying. It would make him difficult to follow or predict.

She tried to think of any possible reason for his presence in Yellow Creek—aside from the godstone. Nothing came to mind, and that left her with a number of pressing questions. What were his intentions regarding the stone? Had he already found it? Was he alert and ready in case he was found, or was he complacent in his power? There were no easy answers, which meant Vlora would have to find them the hard way, the dangerous way.

It was about thirty minutes before Prime folded his paper, finished off his coffee, and stood up. He was dressed as a frontier

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