Ecko Endgame Read Online Free Page A

and waiting.
    “You know what this is,” Amethea said softly. She shook her friend gently. “You do, don’t you? You know.” Her face was grey as parchment; there were shadows under her eyes. “You’ve
felt
this.”
    “No, I haven’t, this is crazed, this is
loco.
” Triqueta broke her friend’s grip, almost snapped it at her. “Look at her, Thea, look! How could I know? How could anyone? How could anyone understand… that? Karine…” Her voice cracked. “Dammit, Karine doesn’t hold some secret, any more than… any more than Redlock did…” Then she lost it, and she was really crying, coughing as she spoke, tears mingling with the rain on her face. “Thea.” She spoke through sobs, almost unintelligible. “This is all crazed. I can’t do this any more, I can’t do this, it’s too much. I want…”
    I want all this to never have happened. I want the summer, I want The Wanderer. I want the plains to be free and the figments and the horrors all gone. I want to ride, and laugh, and know that we have a future ahead of us…
    I want my damned youth back!
    The last thought caught and tripped her, made her look back at the shrunken thing.
    Youth, by the rhez.
    At least I’m still here. Still fighting.
    Still
able
to fight.
    Amethea put her bloodied arms around her friend’s shoulders and they held each other for a moment. But the teacher did not bow her head, did not flinch or cry.
    Her voice tinged with stone, she said, “We’ll see this through to the end. For Karine. For Feren. For Redlock. For The Wanderer and all of her people, for Roderick’s vision. For Ecko. For our damned
selves.
”
    On the other side of the curtain, a voice cried out; there were echoes of panic. The rain, slackening now, pattered on the top of the tent.
    After a moment, Triqueta stood, rubbing her hands over her face. She nodded, understanding settling on her like ash.
    Amethea said, “We’ll take this to Nivrotar. And you’ll have to tell her, Triq, tell her everything. What it felt like, if you could’ve stopped it…”
    Don’t you think I would have?
    Triq’s face must have changed because Amethea flushed, her cheekbones bright against her pale skin.
    She said, “We need to understand. Tarvi said she was Kas, like Vahl Zaxaar, and that they needed time to live. Whatever did this, we need to know. Because I don’t think this is over.”

2: HEAL AND HARM
FHAVEON
    His voice soft with fear, the apothecary said, “My Lord, I don’t know if I should wake her.”
    Rhan Elensiel, Seneschal of Fhaveon, stood silent, his arms crossed and his expression sombre. They were high above the city’s chaos here, and the shutters were closed against the struggling below, against the two moons bright over the water.
    The apothecary was shivering, though the air was not cold. Chillflesh prickled his arms and he rubbed at them almost absently, his attention compelled by the young woman who lay sweating in the midst of the great and tangled bed.
    Selana Valiembor, last child of the House of Saluvarith. Lord Foundersdaughter of Fhaveon, ruler of the dying Varchinde – a tiny figure now curled below the great wooden headboard carven by her forebears. Her body twitched as if with some unseen plague, her eyes flickered beneath closed lids. Every few moments, a shudder went through her as if she fought some figment they could not see, strove to awaken herself from a nightmare beyond words.
    Rhan watched over her as he always had, always would. Fhaveon was his home, his charge, his purpose. Without it…
    The apothecary rubbed at his forearms, ventured, “My Lord?”
    But the words rolled from the Seneschal like the chill, unheeded.
    The old bed taunted Rhan with memories not his own, with crimes he’d not committed. Standing in this room, those shadows still flickered at the edge of his awareness, misdeeds unspeakable.
    Misdeeds with which Phylos had taunted him: the murder of the Foundersson, this haunted child’s father. The rape