Skyborn by Eric Asher

Author:Eric Asher [Asher, Eric]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 1230004775065
Publisher: Eric R Asher LLC
Published: 2021-06-28T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

There was a time Gladys had been nothing but grateful to the Speaker of Bollwerk. He’d taken her in after her family was lost to Rana and the warlords. But the older she got, and the more George spoke freely around her—she couldn’t push down her growing suspicions.

For the time being, Gladys would accept Archibald’s help. It was the best option for her people, and her people were by far her highest priority. Her family had let down Midstream and the surrounding villages far too many times for her to let that happen again.

They’d had warning that the warlords were forming a coalition, and that warning had come years before the raids started. Gladys twisted the ring on her thumb. George told her the plain band had been her mother’s, but she didn’t remember it. Regardless, it now served as a reminder, both of what she’d lost and what she hoped to surpass.

“Princess?” George asked, sitting down his hooked soup spoon. “What troubles you?”

Gladys shook her head, returning to the moment. The bar at the last inn at Midstream was no Fish Head, but the soup had remained a staple in her life as long as she could remember.

“I was just thinking about Archibald.” She took a spoonful of soup. It had cooled somewhat, but the rough-cut vegetables and thick, salty broth were a balm to her worries.

“You need not concern yourself now,” George said. “He needs Midstream to help defend against Fel. There is little threat while that remains true.”

Gladys looked away for a moment, studying the reddish-tan plaster along the walls and thick ironwood beams overhead. “He’s done a lot for us, George. I don’t want to think of him as a threat.” She paused. “Not that I don’t want to, but I can’t think of him as more than a helpful grandfather. It’s like my brain won’t get past that.”

George smiled. “In a year, you will be fourteen, old enough to take the crown. Archibald will seek an alliance with us because you will have reunited the Deadlands. The villages are scattered, some still under threat from the surviving warlords. But that time will pass. Our allies grow with these battles. When I ask you to be suspicious of Archibald, I do not mean he is not an ally, Princess. I mean, you should be suspicious of all allies.” He hesitated before a broad smile lit up his eyes with mischief. “Except for me, of course.”

“Of course,” Gladys said, dripping soup from her spoon as she laughed. Quieter, so not even the bartender could hear, she continued. “I trust Alice, and Jacob. Smith and Mary. They’re our friends.”

“Charles and Archibald were once friends,” George said. “Do not forget that. Even friends can grow distant.”

Gladys chewed on something crunchy. She was fairly certain the cook hadn’t gotten all the chitin off whatever protein was in the soup, but it wasn’t wholly unpleasant. “But in the end, Archibald helped Charles.”

George took a deep breath and nodded. Gladys could tell he still disagreed to an extent.

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