Rebellion: Tainted Realm: Book 2 Read Online Free Page A

crack into a basin carved into the wall, its overflow leaving orange streaks down the stone.
    “I don’t like this place,” said Benn, huddling on a dusty stone bench, one of two.
    “Shh,” said Glynnie.
    In the far right corner a pile of ash was scattered with wood charcoal and pieces of burnt bone, as if someone had cooked meat there and tossed the bones on the fire afterwards.
    Rix perched on the other bench and extended his wrist to Glynnie. “Do you know how to treat wounds?”
    “I can do
everything
.” It was a statement, not a boast.
    “But you’re just – you’re a maidservant. How do you know healing?”
    She pursed her lips. “I watch. I listen. I learn. Benn, bring the glowstone. Rix, hold this.”
    Gingerly, as though she would have preferred not to touch it, she pressed Maloch’s hilt into Rix’s left hand.
    “Why?” he said.
    “It’s supposed to protect you.”
    “Only against magery.”
    She knelt in the dust before him, then took a bottle of priceless brandy from her pack, Rix’s last surviving bottle, and rinsed her hands with it. She laid a little bundle containing rags, needle and thread and scissors on her pack, poured a slug of brandy onto a piece of linen and began to clean his stump.
    Rix tried not to groan. Blood began to drip. By the time she finished, Glynnie was red to the elbows.
    He leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes, for once content to do as he was told.
    “Hold his wrist steady, Benn,” said Glynnie.
    A pair of smaller, colder hands took hold of Rix’s lower arm. He heard Glynnie moving about but did not open his eyes. She began to tear linen into strips. Liquid gurgled and he caught a whiff of the brandy, then a
chink
as she set down a metal cup.
    “I could do with a drop of that,” he murmured.
    Glynnie gave a disapproving sniff. She was washing her hands again.
    “Steady now,” she said. “Hold the sword. This could hurt.”
    She began to spread something over his stump, an unguent that stung worse than the brandy. Rix’s fingers clenched around Maloch’s hilt.
    “Ready, Benn?” said Glynnie.
    “Yes,” he whispered.
    Her hand steadied his wrist. There came a gentle, painful pressure on the stump. Where his fingers touched the hilt, they tingled like a nettle sting. Then Rix felt a burning pain as though she had poured brandy over his stump and set it alight. His eyes sprang open.
    Glynnie had pressed his severed hand against the stump, and now the pain was running up his arm and down into his fingers. Cold blue flames flickered around the amputation site then, with the most shocking pain Rix had ever experienced, the bones of his severed hand ground against his wrist bones –
and seemed to fuse
.
    He had the good sense not to move, though he could not hold back the agony. It burst out in a bellow that sifted dust down from the roof onto them, like a million tiny drops falling through a sunbeam.
    “
What are you doing to me?”

CHAPTER 1
    “Lord Rixium?” Her voice was desperate. “You gotta get up now. The enemy are coming. Coming fast.”
    Rix’s right wrist throbbed abominably, and so did the back of his head. He groaned, rolled over and cracked his ear on a stone edge. His cheek and chest were numb, as if he’d been lying on ice.
    “What…?” he mumbled. “Where…?” His eyes were gummed shut and he didn’t want to open them. Didn’t want to see.
    “Chancellor’s stolen Tali and Rannilt away, to milk their healing blood.”
    He recognised her voice now. A maidservant, Glynnie.
    “And Lord Tobry’s been chucked off the tower, head-first. Splat!” said a boy’s voice from behind Rix.
    “Benn!” Glynnie said sharply.
    Rix winced. Did he have to be so matter-of-fact about it? “Tobe was my oldest friend.”
    “I’m sorry, Lord,” said Glynnie.
    “How long was I out?”
    “Only five minutes, but you’re first on their death list, Lord. If we don’t go now, we’re gonna die.”
    “Don’t call me Lord,