Prince of Swords Read Online Free

person?”
    The prisoner managed to look dignified, even though she was chained to the wall and dirty from a long period of neglect. “Yes, you have. I am Rayne, daughter of the wizard Fynnian and mistress of this house.”
    â€œShe don’t look like any mistress I ever saw,” Segyn muttered.
    The girl gave Segyn a withering look. “I have been held prisoner against my will for many months. Release me, take me to a place of safety, and I will see that you have the dagger you seek.”
    â€œWhere is it?” Lyr asked.
    â€œNot until I have your word,” she said. “Promise me that you will take me away, that you will not leave me until I am safe, and I will deliver to you the crystal dagger.”
    Rayne, daughter of Fynnian, was Ciro’s woman, but perhaps that was not of her choice. Lyr looked into her dark eyes, trying to find the truth there. Yes, she appeared innocent, but that wasn’t what convinced him that she might be telling the truth. The girl was terrified, not of him and not of her jailer’s blade, but of being left here to wait for Ciro’s return.
    â€œYour father is a wizard, you say. Do you have magic?” It would be good to know what he was taking on, if he chose to rescue her.
    â€œNone, much to my father’s regret,” she said.
    Why had he bothered to ask? There was no guarantee that she was telling him the truth. For a long moment Lyr studied the girl. He had been taught not to offer his trust easily, and pretty women were not exempt from his caution. “Segyn, have Til and Swaine search for the dagger. I will wait here.”
    â€œOnly two of your men to search?” Rayne said, seemingly unworried that they might find what they’d come here for without her assistance. “It won’t be easy. You might as well command them all to tear the house apart.”
    â€œTwo is all,” Lyr said.
    â€œDid Ciro’s soldiers kill the rest?” she asked.
    â€œCiro’s soldiers killed none.”
    That news did elicit a reaction, from the girl and from her guardian—the old man who remained against the wall with his throat at the tip of Lyr’s sword. Rayne’s surprise was evident, in her expression and in her words. “Four of you defeated all the men above? It has always sounded to me as if there were…many.”
    â€œThere were eleven,” Lyr said. “Twelve if you count this old man.”
    â€œEleven of them and four of you, and yet you defeated them in short order.”
    â€œThe Circle of Bacwyr does not know defeat, and such odds are not beyond our capabilities.”
    He could almost see the girl’s mind working, and he was so focused on her face that he did not realize what the old man was about to do until it was too late.
    Rayne’s guardian thrust his head forward so that Lyr’s motionless sword sliced through the artery there. The girl yanked against her chains, moving as far away from the grisly scene as possibly. She turned her head and screamed in horror, and when the scream ended, trailing away to nothing, she began to shake.
    Lyr drew his sword away, as the old man quickly passed into the Land of the Dead—or wherever his tainted soul might be called—and watched the tears flow down Rayne’s face. Were the tears real? His mother and sisters were not prone to shedding tears, but then again, they were unlike other women in his experience.
    â€œWhy do you cry for a man who kept you prisoner against your will?” he asked. “Is that the case, or did you choose your current position?”
    Rayne, daughter of the wizard Fynnian and the monster Ciro’s betrothed, glanced at him with an anger that hinted at strength beneath the petite exterior and feeble tears. “Before Ciro ruined Jiri with false promises and hideous threats, he was a good man. I do not cry for my jailer but for the man I once knew, a man Prince Ciro destroyed months