Lost mark 3 The Queen of Death: Read Online Free Page A

that, she could keep in touch with the girl and discover her ultimate fate. When she thought of that, though, and the likely outcome—the elf-maid’s death—she didn't think she could stand to go through feel-ing a girl die like that again.
    She mulled over severing the bond, but that would cut her off from the girl. She didn’t know if she could bear that either. She’d been prepared to try, though, right up until Espre had said that single word to her as she left the ship.
    Damn, damn, damn, Te’oma thought as she turned back toward the Phoenix, fighting a headwind. A fool never takes the easy way.
    Fortunately, the ship had been heading in her direction the entire time. If the changeling hadn't known better, she’d have thought the ship had been chasing her instead of heading straight along the edge of the mountain range.
    As the ship reached the Goradra Gap, Te’oma raced ahead of her, spiraling higher into the air whenever she found a thermal she could ride. Her wings tired easily, and only by working with the winds rather than against them could she remain aloft for long.
    Te’oma spotted the Flying Leap clutched tight to the canyon’s northern wall and knew that this would be the Phoenix’s destination. She spied lookouts stationed in blinds high atop the ridge, and she guessed that they would relay news of the airship’s arrival to the dwarves below in plenty of time for them to be ready for her arrival.
    Hoping the lookouts might think her nothing more than an eagle or hawk, Te’oma flapped off to the east, directly along the seam of the Goradra Gap. This put her on a direct path toward the blinding sun, which soon hid her form from anyone scouring the sky for her from the direction of the Flying Leap.
    Te’oma opened her wings there and let them take her in broad, sweeping circles over the gaping, bottomless chasm. When she looked down, it felt like she might be spiraling about over a starless sky. All she had to do to let it take her would be to fold her wings against her, to let them envelope her in their warmth, and allow gravity to establish its hold on her once more.
    Instead, she wrenched her gaze back toward the Flying
    Leap. She watched as the a number of the people on the Phoenix strode down a gangway and stood talking with a clutch of dwarves on a dock that stuck out into the unprotected air like a wooden giant’s tongue.
    From this distance, she couldn’t be sure who had left the ship and who had stayed behind. Espre stood shorter than most, but so did the dwarf and the halfling. She could distinguish Sallah by the way the sun glinted off her armor as she stood on the dock, but the others were harder to pick out. Soon she gave up trying.
    Only two people remained on the ship, while five disappeared inside the inn. Te’oma considered sweeping down to join them, but the thought of having to deal with twitchy dwarves kept her away.
    Then a body fell from one of the lookout blinds. It tumbled down into the gap without a sound, its limbs flinging about as it spun helplessly.
    Te’oma guessed that whoever it happened to be was already dead. She tore her gaze away from the first body just in time to spy a second one plummeting out of the other blind.
    Te’oma hovered in the air, hanging there on her flapping wings, staring at the blinds. A rope spilled out of one and then the other. The ends of each landed atop the slanted roof of the Flying Leap. No one stood on the deck any longer, and the pair of figures on the bridge of the Phoenix seemed oblivious to the danger, their backs turned to the inn as they gazed over the airship’s other side at the vast, magnificent canyon beyond.
    A handful of figures slipped out of each of the blinds and down the ropes. They zipped down the lines and lit on the inn’s roof like finches finding fresh perches. Even from her spot hanging in the sky, though, Te’oma could tell these were murderous birds of prey.
    Chapter
    5
    Espre had never been in a dwarf inn