Bonded: Book One of the ShadowLight Saga, an Epic Fantasy Adventure Read Online Free

the
gods would allow them to swan-shift and disappear. If guilty or shadow-spawn,
they would die. The tradition was older than many of the tales exchanged on
long winter nights, said to be handed down by the gods to protect man from
Loki’s shadow-spawn. Yet Hallad could not recall a time when anyone had
survived the inquest.
    "Bind her then," said Erik, releasing her. "Tightly."
    "We don’t have any rope." Hallad picked up the young
woman’s sword and tucked the weapon under his belt, hiding the signet within
the folds of his tunic. He marched toward his bow and quiver, where he had
dropped them on the ground at the entrance to the cove. The young woman moved
with him, shadowing his movements. When Hallad stopped, she stopped. Rolf and
Erik exchanged raised brows.
    Without another word they gathered their belongings. Hallad
glanced back at the cove. The water shone like a sheet of ice in the moonlight,
defying any commotion had occurred. Erik and Rolf stopped at the forest’s edge,
freeing the torches from the ground. Rolf took the lead, followed by Hallad. The
strange woman crowded Hallad’s side while Erik took up the rear.
    Their feet crunched over coarse ground. No buds blossomed,
leaving the forest’s floor dormant, coated in a knot of deadness. The woman’s
footfalls made no sound. She glided like a silent shadow by his side. Hallad
couldn’t even detect her breath. Yet without looking, he sensed her next to
him.
    Warmth surged through him overtaking the emptiness he had
felt on the Green, before he had met the stranger, before losing Emma. He bit
back the bile forming in his throat.
    Emma, I failed you.
    Hallad’s part in the night’s events would bring retribution
against him, and rightly so. Godhi’s son or not, he had endangered lives by his
actions.
    A woman’s voice drifted through his thoughts.
    A s long as we are together.
    The words wrapped around him, melting through him, reminding
him of the song that had urged him into the Great Wood. Hallad glanced
sideways, but the young woman kept her gaze forward, lips pressed tight. Had he
just imagined she had spoken?
    The woodlands wrapped them in silence as they headed back to
the village of Steadsby, with the exception of the clank of Erik’s sword
against his scabbard—a warning in case the stranger chose to run.
     

Chapter 4
     
     
    "I demand a hearing of the Hall!" said Erik.
    "Where is my daughter?" Thyre bit back at him,
eyes narrowed, lips twisted.
    Hallad's mother teetered on a seat, erected upon a dais, in
the center of the longhouse. Her hair was a shade deeper than Emma’s, knotted
on her crown; her features were tight from the pull of her bun. A veil draped
off the spiral of hair, signifying her station as Mistress of the Hall. The
woman possessed none of Emma’s gentleness.
    Villagers stopped their merriment to witness the spectacle. The
crowd silenced as the two glowered at one another. Finally, Thyre broke from
her scrutiny of Erik to observe the young woman standing beside Hallad, as
straight and sure as a goddess. Thyre's lips twitched into an uncontrolled grin
as she calculated something unknown. The guileful leer caused Hallad’s chest to
contract in forewarning.
    The godhi, Hallad’s father, inspected the young woman too,
but he didn’t smile. Old haunts seized his aging face. Avarr’s lids sagged over
his eyes—the same mist-gray color as Emma’s, though paled with age.
    Hallad stared at his father. The sleeves of Avarr’s tunic bore
embroidery, emblazed with his signet, the Guardian Tree digging its roots into
the earth—the same signet Hallad wore on his own tunic—the exact seal adorning
the young woman’s sword tucked neatly under Hallad’s mantle.
    The old man shifted his gaze to his son. Sadness tugged his
features downward.
    "The Hall will hear you now." The godhi nodded
toward Erik with the dignity of a king, but the muscles in his neck bunched as
he spoke. "Speak, boy. The Hall hears all who ask. What is