The Dark Warden (Book 6) Read Online Free Page B

Gray Knight,” said Jager, “this is quite the unpleasant inn you have found for us. Surly barmaids,” he grinned at Morigna, who glared right back, “and I daresay the wine and the food are appalling.” 
    “This isn’t the Inn of the Sheathed Sword back in Cintarra,” said Mara.
    “Indeed,” said Jager. “More the pity.”
    They shared a smile at that. A private joke, no doubt. 
    “If the accommodations are not to your liking, master thief,” said Morigna with her usual acerbity, “then perhaps you can return to the valley of the bones. The skeletons, one is sure, would be happy to wait upon you hand and foot.”
    The others entered the ruined tower, removing their packs and laying them against the walls. Calliande’s hand strayed to a leather pouch at her belt. That pouch held the empty soulstone Shadowbearer had intended to use upon her, the empty soulstone that Jager had stolen and given to Tarrabus Carhaine. 
    The empty soulstone that Shadowbearer needed to restore the Frostborn, though Ridmark did not know why.
    After everything they had been through to retrieve the soulstone, Calliande never let the thing out of her sight. 
    “You’ve been here before, haven’t you?” said Calliande. 
    “Aye,” said Ridmark. “Nine years ago. It was deserted then, too.”
    She blinked. “You didn’t encounter the valley of bones?”
    “I confess I took a different route here,” said Ridmark. 
    Calliande laughed. “Plainly it was the better route.”
    He felt himself smile. “Plainly.” 
    A peculiar flicker of guilt went through him. He had kissed her once, just before the wyvern had attacked and poisoned Kharlacht. If not for the wyvern, they might have done more together. Instead they had gone to Coldinium and the Iron Tower, and Morigna had come to him. Calliande was a very different woman than Morigna, yet if Ridmark was honest with himself, he was drawn to her just as much as Morigna. 
    His guilt curdled into self-contempt. Was this the kind of man he had become? Once he had been a Swordbearer of Dux Gareth Licinius’s court, the husband of Aelia. That man, if he could see himself now, would have been appalled.
    A further unsettling thought came to Ridmark.
    He had seen the future, hadn’t he? The Warden had shown it to him in a vision. Ridmark had denied it, had vowed to avert it, but it had come to pass anyway.
    Did that mean the Warden had known Ridmark would return all along?
    That was a tremendously disturbing thought. 
    “Is everything all right?” said Calliande.
    Ridmark realized that he had started scowling. He felt Morigna’s eyes on him. 
    “Yes,” said Ridmark. “Given that we are traveling though the Torn Hills on the way to Urd Morlemoch.”
    Jager snorted as he rummaged through his pack. “How cheering.”
    “I am going to have a look around,” said Ridmark. “I thought it odd that this tower was deserted nine years ago, and I still think it odd.” If there was danger nearby, some compelling reason the tower was deserted, he could find it.
    It would also give him a moment to collect his thoughts.
    “I will come with you,” said Morigna. “Going alone is too dangerous, and if you are attacked you may need aid.”
    Ridmark hesitated, a dozen different responses going through his mind.
    “Very well,” he said at last. 
     
    ###
     
    Ridmark moved through the ravine, Morigna silent as his side. 
    He enjoyed scouting with her. None of the others could keep up with him and move as quietly. Gavin and Kharlacht moved silently enough, but Morigna was a ghost next to them. Calliande knew about many things, but woodcraft was not one of them. Mara and Jager were both stealthy, but they were creatures of the city, and Jager looked at everything he encountered in the wilderness as if it might try to attack him. 
    Which, in the Torn Hills, was not wrong. 
    Yet Morigna moved through the wilds with the ease of someone who had grown up there. In some ways she was better than