Bright Raven Skies by Kristina Perez

Author:Kristina Perez
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Imprint

A LIFE IN A MOMENT

THUNDER REVERBERATED AROUND BRANWEN AND the others, except it wasn’t thunder.

Otho led the hunting party, for that is what they were, through dune grasses up a hill from the beach into a small wood. Branwen licked a salty bead of sweat from her upper lip; her leather trousers started to cling to her thighs, and she envied Alba her short hair as the temperature continued to rise.

The pirate was taking them on an indirect route, climbing the promontory on which the fortress was built, using the branches of alder and blackthorn trees as camouflage. Their nondescript clothing shouldn’t mark them as foreigners when they reached their destination. Hopefully.

Branwen listened attentively for the shriek of a Death-Teller, but she only heard the song of a lark. Alba marked several trees with her sword.

“We may need to find our own way back,” she said quietly to Branwen. Branwen gave a single nod.

Twigs crunched underfoot. This side of the island was strangely serene save for the booms of the fireballs raining down on the royal forces. Branwen watched as a coral-winged butterfly drifted from wildflower to wildflower, almost disoriented. Her magic fizzed in her veins, suspense mounting until it became unbearable.

“Eseult is your given name,” Branwen said to Alba. “Kahedrin told me you didn’t like it.”

Alba pitched her a quizzical stare. “I have more given names than are worth counting, like most princesses,” she said. “Eseult never fit. Alba did.”

“No, I can’t see you as an Eseult,” Branwen agreed. Alba was as different from her cousin as a person could be.

“Although I imagine the court gossips across the southern continent will delight in the knowledge that Tristan was accused of an affair with one Eseult, and ended up married to another.” Her laugh was brittle as she slashed the trunk of an alder.

“You danced well together at your wedding feast.”

“He’s quick on his feet.” She smirked. “Just not as quick as me.”

The trees thinned before them. A road stretched up the hillside to the fort, the impressions of wagon wheels well-trodden in the grass.

“Are we planning to knock on the front door?” Alba demanded to know. Xandru’s posture was taut, ready to pounce.

“Otho will get us inside, little cousin,” he said.

The hill grew steeper as they followed the road. A sharp drop on one side revealed a quarry. Granite had been in high demand at the peak of the Aquilan Empire and the pirates’ ancestors had been sentenced to hard labor in the Veneti Isles. Men had been exiled from across Albion, as well as the southern continent. The prisoners must have quarried the stone to build the fortress themselves.

Sunlight glittered on the rectangular structure. Branwen spied four gatehouses, each in the center of the walls surrounding the fort to the north, south, east, and west. Clouds scudded above a further four watchtowers that loomed at the corners where the walls met. Master Bécc had always praised Aquilan architecture while lamenting their emperors.

A network of ramshackle dwellings extended outward from the shadows of the fortress.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.