Dragonsbane (Book 3) Read Online Free

eyes that sat beneath his dark mat of hair fit a lion much better than a man. What did surprise him was the fact that he’d chosen to follow them out of the plains when he didn’t much care for any of them — a fact he reminded them of nearly every hour.
    Eveningwing screeched again.
    Silas’s arms tightened around his prey. “If you wanted to eat human food, then you should’ve worn your human skin,” he said haughtily.
    Kyleigh slapped his arms away and grabbed one of the chickens. “You have plenty to share.”
    Silas hissed at her.
    She leveled the carcass at his nose, brandishing it like a sword. “Do that again, and I’ll really give you something to mew about.”
    Silas glowered a moment before he shrugged and went back to his meal. Kyleigh tossed the chicken into the rafters — where Eveningwing snapped it up.
    Kael’s eyes trailed across his companions once more. He sat quietly, drinking in the noise of their chatter … trying to burn every detail of their faces into his memory.
    “I think I’m going to turn in,” he finally said.
    Kyleigh nodded. “Sleep well.”
    He returned her smile with a fleeting one of his own before he trudged upstairs.
    With so many of them holed up together, they’d had to squeeze in wherever they would fit. Kael shared his tiny chamber with a crowd of pirates. Their bedrolls were packed end-to-end all across the floor, creating a lumpy, uneven maze with very little bare space in between.
    Kael had his things in the spot closest to the door. He knew this meant he was likely to get trampled when the pirates finally came upstairs, but he was all right with that. He wasn’t planning to sleep for long.
    “Evening, Thelred,” he said as he slipped off his boots.
    He got no reply.
    Thelred had claimed the room’s only bed. He lay atop the sheets, one arm slumped across his eyes and the nub of his leg balanced upon a stack of pillows. The plate of food Aerilyn had brought up for him lay untouched on his bedside table.
    As Kael stared at the bandages around Thelred’s knee, the room dropped away and thrust him into a memory: he heard the blast of Finks’s spell and saw Thelred’s blood paint the walls.
    It’d all happened too quickly — nobody could’ve possibly moved fast enough to save him , his mind whispered. But the memory lashed him again.
    The force of colors and sounds, the raw red of the blood and Thelred’s piercing screams — nothing could erase what his eyes had seen, what his ears had heard. He found no solace in the assurances of his mind, nor any comfort from the mouths of his friends.
    For the memory spoke the truth.
    With the black beast finally thrust from his heart, he felt as if a window had been opened before his eyes. He’d spent days combing through the memories of what he’d done in the plains. He saw the tattered edges of his plans, worn frail by his anguish. His face burned fiercely each time he reached a tangle in the threads — a mistake that could’ve easily been avoided.
    There were many worn patches, many bunched-up knots. He watched himself fumble through that season of his life with his lip curled over his teeth. He’d fallen so easily to his sorrows — he realized that, now. He saw his recklessness and his apathy for what they were: the twin wings of his great black weakness.
    It reminded him of the stories Roland used to tell — the ones that always ended badly. The heroes he’d spoken about had all had one great flaw. Their weaknesses slowly consumed them as the tale went on and by the end of the story, they’d paid dearly for their mistakes.
    That was what burned Kael worst of all. He deserved to pay the price for what he’d done. Instead, he’d walked away unscathed. The pirates and giants filled the grave he’d dug for himself. Others bore his wounds. It should’ve been him lying broken upon that bed, but it wasn’t.
    Thelred was a monument of his mistakes, the embodiment of all his errors —a living reminder that