Path of Bones Read Online Free

young Bloodspeaker had grown more influential than ever before, and she, like all of those who shared her disease, had had her once promising mind corrupted by the taint of dark magic.  The Veil soiled the souls of those born with it inside them, made them anathema to the world – only those who chose to yield the Veil willingly after years of disciplined training could ever hope to do so without succumbing to its vile lusts. 
    Bloodspeakers were a disease, and Azaean would see to it they were purged.  She had to destroy them before they destroyed themselves, for they would surely take the rest of the world with them.  It wasn’t a new problem, but rather an unending battle.  Llandrix had spent years trying to eradicate the Bloodspeaker plague, and the struggle had taken an enormous amount of time and resources.  Not everyone understood the gravity of the conflict or why it was so important it be done quickly: the Bloodspeakers were organizing, and their leaders had enough guile and determination that they could do tremendous damage given enough time.  Leaders like Malath, and Kala. 
    Azaean had completely forgotten what she’d been writing about.  She looked around the room, bewildered.  Her head was pounding.  Normally she would have called on the Veil to expel the headache, but she knew, perhaps better than anyone else alive, that the Veil couldn’t heal this hurt, because it was the cause.  Not a Veilwarden or Bloodspeaker alive commanded the Veil as effectively as Llandrix – she had, after all, rebuilt the Veilwardens Academy after her narrow-minded brute of a father had torn it down, and in so doing had redefined the foundations for how to Touch the Veil.  But what no one knew was that so many years spent exposed to magic’s corruptive influence was slowly killing her.
    Her hands fumbled nervously at the desk.  She found the compartment which only she could locate.  Her stomach lurched, and bile caught in the back of her throat. 
    Llandrix was near passing out when she finally unstoppered the glass vial – one of several hidden in the desk compartment – and gulped down the crimson-colored contents.  Her throat tightened and her body convulsed at the foul taste of the liquid she’d developed, an alchemical concoction made from the blood of Allaji slaves, who held a tighter connection to the Veil’s magic than anyone else. 
    Her nerves calmed almost instantly.  The room shifted from a nauseating cyclone to something stable and dark, and the throbbing in her head slowly faded.  She knew the experience had lasted less than a minute, but the pulses of pain resonated deep, and she felt her body wilt in the aftermath.  The Veil had tried to draw her in, and the struggle had left her eyes sore and her stomach twisted. 
    Azaean calmly deposited the empty vial back in the drawer and sealed the desk shut.  She sat still and quiet for a long time.  The attacks were getting worse, and Llandrix felt the cold touch of fear run down her spine. 
    It was the Veil’s wrath.  The One Goddess did not take well to her blood being manipulated by the hands of mortals, and just as Azaean had reached for the Veil so many times, it was now reaching for her .
     
    She’d built an Empire.  She’d never known her mother, so she’d had only her father to look up to, a cruel and lying bastard with dreams of rallying the petty-minded lords of the then-Duchies of Jlantria into a united struggle to overthrow Archduke Cassis.  Once that was done he’d planned to kill his allies, as well, so he could seize total power for himself.  His plan nearly succeeded, up until the point when Llandrix had finally had enough of his brutalizing her body the way he’d brutalized everything else. 
    Emperor Kronos Azaean, Sovereign Emperor of Jlantria and First of his Name, was betrayed by a daughter who shared his penchant for vengeance.  Llandrix defeated her father’s Hellknights and had him imprisoned, took control of