Wedding the Dread Lord: A Tale of Eladria by Dery A. F

Author:Dery, A. F. [Dery, A. F.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ring Drop Press LLC
Published: 2016-10-02T00:00:00+00:00

#

Thane did not think of himself as being a man prone to paranoia. Oh, sure, he had heard the usual jokes about “Eladrian paranoia.” He had been known to make them himself on an occasion or two. But he didn’t think it was truly paranoia. It was caution. It was wisdom. It was a sense of responsibility that had been finely honed on the battlefield, where being braced for the worst could mean the difference between victory and defeat, life and death.

Although he was sure it would take Kitarin at least an hour to set her scheme to have him watched in motion, and although he was sure his own orders would be fully executed by that time, he was equally sure he felt eyes on him from the moment he left the High Lord’s study, and every moment since.

He met with his scouts out in the courtyard, the air warm and golden as the sun rose overhead, and he learned all had been blissfully silent at the Lyntaran border since their last report.

But the space between his shoulder blades itched unpleasantly all the while, and he struggled not to level undue scrutiny on their surroundings.

Perhaps because he was so tense, his men seemed tense, too. He caught the inquisitive looks in their eyes, but true to their discipline, they said nothing.

He noticed with a sense of satisfaction that their curiosity dissolved into watchfulness as he dismissed them and headed back around the palace. Good. Let them be vigilant. They’ll hear what’s going on soon enough.

By this time, the sun was directly overhead. Thane’s anxiety over the bracelet managed to momentarily dwarf his seething, but wholly justified and not at all paranoid, concern over Kitarin’s plotting.

Hopefully the blacksmith hadn’t been too terrorized to do a good job. There wouldn’t be sufficient time for the man to remake it, so Thane would have to give it to Kesara as it was, no matter what it looked like, if he was to keep his word to her.

And then there was the engraving. At first, he had thought to have the blacksmith do it. A professional would surely be a finer hand at that sort of thing.

Now, however, he worried. What if some spy of Kitarin’s talked to the blacksmith after he’d gone? The very fact that Thane had asked for a bracelet to be made would surely seem strange. At least it wasn’t a ring. Bracelets weren’t particularly matrimonial in this part of the world.

He still wasn’t sure just what to say to the blacksmith when he arrived back at the smithy, but fortunately, he was spared having to say anything. The blacksmith saw him at his approach and, amid some weird-looking jerks of his upper torso, presented him with a small bundle of cloth.

Thane cautiously accepted it with a polite nod of his head and unwrapped it. He didn’t quite manage to suppress his smile, a fact not lost on the blacksmith, who nearly fell over backwards in his haste to put distance between himself and Thane’s dauntingly large teeth.

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.