Mistwood Read Online Free Page B

an arrow fly at her from a narrow window. She reached out almost languidly to catch it. Her hand closed around the rough wood, and the arrow broke in half in her grasp; it dropped as she whirled to catch the next one, and then the next. A torrent of arrows, and she danced among them, letting them fall broken around her feet.
    And then all at once her body turned to stone, refusing to obey her mind’s commands. Arrested in mid-turn, she watched as the arrow she had been about to catch went right between her open fingers; a moment later she felt a sharp, tearing pain as it thudded into her side. Another arrow went past her, and another.
    Isabel heard herself scream, and took a moment to realize that the sound was just the memory, that she was still standing silent as the high sorcerer smirked at her. She shoved the memory away and faced him, though the scream still beat at the inside of her clenched teeth. She would not show weakness. Not to him .
    Not to anyone.
    “Well,” she said, striving to appear unconcerned, “ this spell doesn’t seem to have succeeded quite as well.”
    “We haven’t had as much time to work on it,” he growled.
    “Then I suppose I’ll be on my guard in twenty years.” She hesitated, though probably not long enough for him to notice. She was shaken, and wanted to make her escape. But she also wanted to know what the memory meant, when it had happened, and why she had cared more about the arrows whistling past her than about the one that had pierced her side. “In the meantime,” she finished, “I won’t hold this against you. Know that the Shifter never disdains any assistance in protecting her prince.”
    No matter how insignificant , her tone proclaimed, and she watched the tiny clenching of nearly-invisible muscles beneath the smooth fat of his cheeks. It was a moment before he could speak, and then he couldn’t manage it without spitting.
    “Don’t be so secure in your power, Shifter. You think Rokan trusts you—a creature without a heart, without a soul? I told him exactly what you are when he came to me for help, with his delusion that a bracelet might protect him from one such as you. I warned him what he was inviting into his castle.”
    “Really?” Isabel said, adopting a curious tone. “Did he take your advice?”
    Albin drew himself to his full height—which was still only a few inches taller than Isabel. “He heard what I said, and he won’t forget. When you eventually turn on him, he’ll remember. He’ll know that I was the only one who tried to protect him from you.”
    “How kind of you to take matters into your own hands.” She moved suddenly, first kneeling to swoop up the knife, then coming to a stop only inches from the sorcerer. She was faster than any human, and Albin had no time to summon up a spell. He stumbled back several steps, and she smiled demurely as she held the knife out to him, hilt first. “Don’t worry. I won’t tell Rokan about this charming demonstration of your power.”
    Not yet, she amended silently as the high sorcerer turned on his heel and walked down the long hall. After all, why make Albin into Rokan’s enemy? Let him be hers. She, clearly, could handle him.
    What made her heart pound against her ribs, so that she lay awake for a long time staring at the green canopy stretched above her bed, was the possibility of a similar attack against Rokan. Her own safety could wait until his was assured. Her own safety, in fact—she realized with neither surprise nor resentment—was of no concern at all.
     
     
    Isabel spent half the next day exploring the castle; she was determined to be so familiar with it that she could walk through it blindfolded and know where every step and turn would take her. The castle was a maze of passageways and rooms and inner courtyards tiled with flagstone, halls blending into one another on most of the ground floors, upper floors crammed with narrow corridors and closed doors. She soon discovered that