Bloodstone Read Online Free Page A

man stoked his fire, raising flames. He passed his knife three times through the fire’s heart, making sure every trace of the beast-man burned away and the blade was purified, before laying it on a rock to cool. A branch burst in the ash, shooting a spiral of embers toward a sky streaked with twilight. He straightened and watched them catch the breeze, scatter like fireflies, and, one by one, wink out. An all-too-familiar urge to join them, to explode brilliantly and then... dissipate shook through his body. If only he hadn’t survived that day, hadn’t awakened to the horrible aftermath and the… abomination it had made of him.
    He stared at his gloved hands, at the black fabric cuffing his wrists and extending up his arms, over his head, and down to his feet, concealing every inch of his flesh. Dear Koronolan, even I can’t bear to look! Groaning, he sank down on a rock and cradled his head in his hands. “I should have let the creature kill me! Then I would be free.”
    You’d be dead, said the Voice in his head. How is that being free?
    Be still! But the voice was right; he would never allow himself to die at the hands of a Krad. Not even now, after more than a dozen years of this… existence , doomed to hide himself from everyone, with only a damned, annoying voice in his head for company. Talking to it—to whatever part of his splintered self had spawned it—kept him sane.
    The horse whinnied. Eyes rimmed in white, the gray stallion shook its head and stamped.
    Rising with an effort, the man followed the stallion’s gaze to the edge of the clearing. The Wehrland lion sat in lengthening shadows, its eyes pinpoints of reflected firelight.
    By Kiros, not the damned lion again! He bent to retrieve the knife lying on the rock, muttering, “Fresh-killed Krad not to your taste? Don’t think you’ll find a meal here.”
    A slight tilt of the she-cat’s head made him freeze in mid-motion. Behind him the fire hissed and popped, but the feline gaze glowed now with a steady luminescence, a steady, unnerving, yellow-green luminescence. The man’s skin prickled. He swallowed, but he had no power to pull his gaze away. No power at all...
    “ — I saved you, Durren — ” said a voice, not in his head.
    The man whirled, knife in hand. His stallion reared, squealing. Overhead, a night bird veered off with a sudden beat of wings.
    “Who’s there?” the man cried. But no shadow moved, no creature detached itself from the forest’s edge, no form materialized from the gathering darkness.
    “I’m hearing things.” He slammed his knife into its sheath. “You’ve done it!” he shouted, swinging back to the lion. “You brought the Krad! You made me—”
    The lion was gone.
    The man stood, shivering as the breeze licked up his back. “I’ve had enough of the Wehrland.” Striding to his horse, he weighed the gem pouch at his waist. “It’s time to go to the valley and trade these cursed things.” The bloodstone alone would fetch as much as the others combined. Together, there should be enough to buy supplies and go home.
    Yes, home, said the Voice in his head, where illusions won’t call you by name... Durren.
    The name burned in his gut like the twist of a knife. He sucked in a breath, enduring, before he spoke, saying it out loud so there would be no mistake. “That name is dead.” If only the nightmares would leave it buried. They might, if he could leave the Wehrland tonight and return to the caves, the tunnels, the deep silent blackness he longed for in the bowels of Drakkonwehr fortress.
    But first he forced his fingers to unclench and comb through the stallion’s mane, first they would have to go to Ar-Deneth. And he would have to deal with people. Well, it would have to be done. He shivered again and flung on his cloak.
    ****
    In Ar-Deneth, the White Boar Inn, days later ...
    Gareth rolled away from the jostling hand. “Get up, boy,” Ulerroth said, pulling him out of a dream. “I don't pay you