Michelle West - Sun Sword 01 - The Broken Crown Read Online Free Page B

did not release her, but only because he could not; the
spell was near completion, and this particular casting of it required
physical contact. He was not, after all, a lord who chose ostentation
in any of his endeavors.
    He cast a glamour upon her, something to take away the fear
that she radiated; in the Shining City, there was no faster way to be
noticed. No better way to call the kin, be they greater or lesser, to
feed. She was not ready for that—nor would she ever be.
    The kin that had been called to these plains for the first
time in millennia found the absence of Those Who Have Chosen a far more
bitter thing than any, even Isladar, had suspected.
    And Isladar, of the kin, was the wisest.
    He came to the stone tower that had been built upon its own
foundation. Steps, of a piece, were sheared up the tower's side; they
were small enough for human feet, and they would serve until such a
time as human feet no longer found it necessary to traverse them. The
tower of the Lord had no such steps; his audiences were few indeed, and
he chose to hold them in the basin at the foot of this, his Shining
City. The kinlords, each and every one, were capable of rising to the
height of his doors without the need to touch anything as rough as hewn
stone; it was a subtle test, another proof that only the powerful
reigned in the Hells.
    In the Hells.
    But in this rocky, barren place, the skies were clear; the
snow, when it fell, fell in a clean, white storm of ice from the
heights; the rivers that ran carried with them pebbles, stones,
sand—and the air was silent, the lands were empty for as far as the eye
could see.
    The kin could see far indeed.
    There were no demesnes here, although there were Lords; there
were no souls. Mandaros did not control the only gate to this realm,
and the kin were free to gaze upon the souls of those who had not yet
made their Choice; who had not yet traveled the length and breadth of
their many, many lives. And the souls of the undecided were both an
offense and a dangerous curiosity.
    He looked at the rigid form of the woman beside him, seeing
beyond the fragile network of skin and vein and flesh. She was pale,
pale gray; if darkness lingered, it lingered so far away from the heart
that he knew she was a lifetime or two away from her last journey to
the Hall of Mandaros. And while Mandaros reigned, while the Kings
reigned, while the world turned and changed in ways that were less
conducive to the fear and the hatred, trie loss and the bitter, bitter
anger that consumed the spirit, such a soul as this would never be
theirs. Or be his.
    Ah, but the Lord had his plans, and the Lord could see far
beyond the span of a single human life.
    The kinlord's lips lifted in a subtle smile. Because he knew,
as did the Lord, that the span of a single human life—less—was all that
they had, if they were to succeed. What Allasakar had done, the
Oathmaker could do again in a matter of decades.
    If the Oathmaker and the Lord stood across a field of battle,
both at the peak of their powers, there was no contest. But they would
not stand at the peak of their powers; or at least the Lord would not.
Not now. To exist in this world at all he had had to sever the
connection between the hells and the mortal plane before he was fully
prepared. He was, as the kin, required to form a body out of the
substance of the plain itself—and to build a body to house the power of
a god was no simple task, no easy feat. Once, it might have been.
    Before the sundering.
    But the lands of man fought and pulled against the immortal;
to create the avatar itself was a task not to be hurried—when one had
the luxury, and the knowledge. They knew now. They had not known then.
Thus even with the plans of the Lord of the Hells. Crippled or no, he
was strong. And crippled or no, he wore the mantle; he was the Lord of
them all.
    The Lord they had chosen to follow.
    She stirred, as she stood beside him, drawing his attention.
    "Welcome," he said, his