Steel and Shadow: An Epic Fantasy Read Online Free

kind,” she said, and lifted the wooden spoon as she balanced the bowl in one hand to eat quickly, and with surprisingly large bites.
                  “How long have you been a slave,” he asked.
                  “Just over six years.  Since the last war,” she said quietly as she ate with an intense focus on the food before her.  “My family was taken on the borderlands near Trylls, I recall that much, but little else save we were attacked by slave-hunters ere the kings made their last peace.”
                  She sighed, and looked sad now, but finished the stew, and looked out at the darkness beyond the walls where she stood with a quiet dignity he had not seen in many of those he had met of late.
                  “What happened to your family,” he asked.
                  She sighed again.  “Mother was sold ere I came here.  My brother….  I don’t know if she is even alive.  My father and older sister were both slain when they took us.”
                  “They slew your sister,” he frowned, wondering why anyone would slay a female for any reason.
                  “She was….very fierce,” she smiled proudly, eyes misting slightly as she remembered things only she recalled.  “She took up an axe, and set to hacking at those Galdyn slavers like they were saplings.  In the end, they brought her down,” she said in the same sad tone.  “But, at least she died free.”
                  “Aye.  You, though, must have been only a child.”
                  “Aye,” she nodded.  “I was but nine.  I wanted to flee, but there was nowhere to go, and even as I watched Anna die…..  One of them…..”
                  He felt the pain and misery rise in her, and being more aware of his own nature and powers since he had been found over six years past, he knew what she felt.
                  “I can understand in part,“ he told her quietly, putting a hand on her shoulder.  “I never knew my family.  If I ever had any.  I simply woke into this world, and learned only pain until the day Commander Sanz found me, and raised me up.”                 
                  “You are lucky,” She told him. “A good man found you.”
                  “Aye.  I was.”
                  “Are…Are the stories true?  Are you…..a demon?”
                  He looked down at the young lass with dark red hair cut in a short slave bob.  Her bright green eyes dark with misery.  Still, he saw no condemnation there.  None of the usual fear or disdain he usually saw in most eyes.               
                  “Do I look like a demon, lass?”
                  “You look like a man.”
                  “So I am.  I am just….a different kind of man.  I learned I could….do things others could not.  That has made most men fear me.  Shun me.  And, aye, try to destroy me.  But demons and devils?  In truth, while I have seen many things even in my short time in this world, I’ve never seen anything like that,” he told her.  “I vow, most men are monstrous enough not to need such creatures.”
                  “Do they….  Do your….comrades not fear you?”
                  He gave a wry snort.  “Most of them care only that I ease their victories.  Even those that were with the commander from the start only see me as another weapon they can use against their enemies.  Only the commander treats me like I am a man.  Like I am….human.”
                  “Then, aye, you are fortunate.  At least you have one true friend in this world,” she said, not cringing as so many did when he touched them.  She had not flinched when he had put a comforting hand on her shoulder, and when he left that hand on her,