Bricrui (The Forgotten: Book 2) Read Online Free

destination.
    The Queen had not been able to tell her where
Alina had been taken since Lord Telvani had been carrying out his
own secret agendas behind her back, but she had given her a list of
possible Order fortresses and she and the Knights were currently
checking them all out. So far, they had searched three of them and
found only a handful of escaped prisoners, but no signs of
kidnapped children. Natalya was beginning to worry. She had been so
sure that once she spoke to the Queen, everything would be alright,
but that hadn’t been the case. And now, it had been weeks since
Alina was taken. Who knew what atrocities had been done to her. The
Queen and Lady Katrina had uncovered several documents suggesting
that others had been taken from other towns as well, though none of
the other towns had been so completely demolished afterwards.
    Natalya felt tears welling up in her eyes and
she roughly wiped her face with the back of her sleeve. All the
Knights were purposefully looking in other directions, and she
scowled. Now she knew how the Queen felt, constantly attended. It
was rather annoying.
    She rolled the map back up and stuffed it
unceremoniously into the bag, urging her mount forward. The Knights
fell into step around her. One of them, a young man by the name of
Jeremy, came to ride next to her.
    “Think we’ll find anything interesting at
this one?” he asked, a bit too excitedly for her liking. She
understood his youthful eagerness, but in light of events that had
happened to her, she felt her own enthusiasm wavering. She was
content to find nothing interesting but her sister. She tried not
to let her mood rub off on him though.
    She forced a smile. “I don’t know,” she
answered in a light tone, “I thought the last one was pretty
interesting. We got to bring two criminals to justice.”
    “Yeah,” he agreed in a whining voice, “but
they came so peacefully .”
    Natalya laughed despite herself. “And you
would have preferred them not to?”
    “Then I’d get to show you how good I am with
my sword,” he grinned at her with a suggestive look. The eyebrow
tilt that accompanied this statement was so comically dramatic that
she couldn’t help but smile – this time for real.
    She shook her head, still smiling. Despite
his joking tone with her, he was quite the ladies-man. She had
witnessed him sweet-talking several of the maids at more than one
of the manors they had stayed at. She was appalled, but impressed,
at how often it worked. She was a bit young for him to be seriously
pursuing her, but she was not so naïve that she couldn’t still play
the game. At the moment, however, she was not in the mood.
    “I just hope that we find something to lead
us to my sister,” she sighed now, her thoughts swinging back to
reality.
    “We will,” Jeremy reached over and patted her
on the arm. “You’ve got the best group of men riding with you a
girl could ask for. We’ll find her.” He gave her a lop-sided grin.
After a moment of silence, he dug around in his saddlebags. He
lifted something out and handed it to her. “Here,” he offered.
    Natalya looked at the item in his
outstretched hand. It appeared to be a long necklace of difference
colored beads. “What is this?”
    “It’s a worry-bracelet; my sister makes them.
When you’re worried about something you’re supposed to rub one of
the beads and put all your worry into it so that the beads carry
around the burden instead of you.” He shrugged, looking a little
embarrassed, and quickly glanced around to see if any of the other
Knights were within earshot. “I’ve always thought it was a bit
hokey myself…” he trailed off, shoving the beads towards her.
    She took them with an affectionate smile.
“Thank you,” she said sincerely, “that’s very kind of you.”
    He smiled; a genuine smile, not one trying to
impress a lady. “Here, let me help you.” He took her hand and
draped the beads around it three times to make it snug enough