Touch of Ice by Mary Auclair

Author:Mary Auclair [Auclair, Mary]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Eclipse Press
Published: 2018-01-17T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

The next morning, Aldric walked into the throne room after visiting Rhyl in his lair. It was already mid-morning, at least a good four hours after dawn. He’d had six more hours of sleep than usual, but the rest had done wonders for his constitution. Rhyl was no longer drawing his vitalem away, and that was a relief. Aldric still wasn’t back at full strength, but at least his mind was clear and he could focus again.

Rhyl was recuperating from the effects of the poison, hiding away in his the darkness of the lair. The dragon’s mood was dark and he still fumed from the attack. Aldric spent a long time with his friend and Myral, and knew the beast’s outrage at being hurt ran deeper than the poison’s effect. Rhyl hadn’t sensed the danger, hadn’t smelled it on the body of the Knat-Kanassis acolyte, and that infuriated him.

The acolytes were no ordinary foes. They knew how to disguise their smells, their intentions. They had infiltrated his house without sounding any alarms, even with his guards on high alert. They had a poison of extraordinary rarity, one of the only ones that could injure and kill a dragon.

After all these years, after all he had done, Aldric was afraid for the first time. Not afraid for himself, nor even for Rhyl. He was afraid for Endora and Shari. Afraid for those dear to him.

The thought made him pause. Did he mean it?

Closing his eyes, he brought back Endora’s image as he’d seen her last night. Her face sweet and her velvet eyes overcome with passion. No, she wasn’t dear. She was life itself, giving meaning to his world. She had brought warmth and smiles where there had only been a frozen landscape of duty. The loneliness of his past life seemed so remote, so unbearable now, that he knew he could never go back.

That meant he had to understand why the Knat-Kanassis were back, and why they’d picked him as a target.

The purpose of the last attack was unclear. They’d planted a bomb in the heart of his house, wounding and killing Delradon and humans alike. This was nothing like the attacks in Yrno and Hylberia, targeting Delradons and humans who didn’t respect their bigoted ideas about race purity. No, this was an attack on his power, on his opinion of human and Delradon integration. This was more than just the restrictive, petty view of some religious zealots living in the remote wilderness.

He was the ultimate target, he was sure of it. Endora couldn’t be. It was only sheer bad luck that she had been present at all. Then why the bomb? It couldn’t injure a dragon.

What do they want?

He growled with frustration.

The door to the throne room opened, and Aldric turned to see Dalgo walking toward him, followed by two guards. The two guards, young men barely old enough to wear the uniform, carried a wooden box between them. They had the haunted looks of men who saw horrors they weren’t prepared to see, and yet could never forget.

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