The Destroyer Goddess Read Online Free

for his life after a dragonfish killed him. He had intended to go to sea with Zarien, who was convinced that Tansen must be the sea king he sought, but... "We had an unexpected change of plans."
    "What happened?" Mirabar asked.
    "First, tell me what's—"
    "Tansen!"
    He made a vague gesture. Her eyes followed the movement—then widened. She came closer and took his left hand between both of hers. Her touch set his heart to pounding again.
    "You've sworn another bloodvow," she observed.
    "Oh. Yes..."
    She looked so beautiful. As beautiful as the mountains of Sileria. How had he ever, even at first, failed to see her beauty? He couldn't even remember what idiocy had prompted him to flinch in superstitious fear the first time he had ever looked into those passionate flame-gold eyes. 
    Mirabar was a shallah and immediately understood the significance of the deep, slowly healing cut on his palm. "A bloodpact relation," she murmured.
    "I've become a father," he told her.
    She didn't have to ask whom he had taken for a son. "But doesn't he already have a fath—"
    "When we got to Shaljir, we found out they were dead. His whole family and most of his clan."
    "Dead?" Her face clouded with sorrow for Zarien.
    "They died... well, not long after he did. Only no goddess brought them back to life."
    "What happened?" Mirabar asked.
    "They were killed at sea, when an earthquake on land swelled the waves and flung their boat against the rocks." Tansen told her everything else that he knew about it. Except Zarien's secret, of course, which it was not his right to share without permission...
    "My real father wasn't sea-bound. Not even sea-born. My father was a drylander." Zarien's words were choppy and harsh.
    "Who was he?" Tansen asked.
    "I don't know." 
       "I see. And your mother?"
    Zarien shook his head. "I don't know."
    "So Zarien threw Sharifar's gift to him, that oar—what did he call it, a stahra —into the sea?" Mirabar said, looking a little shocked. "To break the bargain she made with him the night she gave him back his life?"
    The stahra —a traditional weapon of the sea-born folk—did indeed look like an oar. Tansen said, "He's very angry at Sharifar for letting his family die." Adopted in infancy, Zarien had believed they were his real family until the night, deep beneath the sea's surface, when Sharifar restored his life and told him the truth. And now the boy grieved for them as his real family. "He has turned his back on the sea."
     Mirabar said with concern, "I understand. But even so... What if he changes his mind later? The stahra —"
    "—was meant to lead him to me. It's not needed anymore."
    "We don't know that," Mirabar objected. "Not really. Sharifar's will can be interpreted in a number of—"
    "Well, it's gone, either way," Tansen said. "And there's nothing we can do about it now."
    "A quarrel with a goddess is dangerous," Mirabar said pensively.
    "I know."
    Her gaze flashed up to his. "Yes. Of course."
    Unable to resist, he reached up to touch one of the brilliant yellow flowers decorating her lush hair. "Now tell me. What's going on here?"
    "Um..." She licked her lips. "Well, you're going to find this very strange. I didn't expect you back so soon. I hadn't yet really considered how I would tell you—"
    "Tell me what?"
    From behind him, a gruff female voice said, "Aren't you ready yet? Baran's getting bored."
    Tansen whirled to face Sister Velikar. 
    "Oh. You're back. Hello," Velikar said, with about as much warmth as she ever showed.
    "Where is Baran?" Tansen demanded.
    Sister Velikar jerked her chin. "Inside."
    "He's here ?" His swords were in his hands before he realized he had unsheathed them. Halfway across the garden, he felt Mirabar's arms around him, her weight dragging against him to slow him down.
    "Stop!" she cried. "No!" 
    "He's come to kill you!" said Tansen. 
    To his astonishment, Velikar laughed.
    He stopped and glared at the Sister. "Sanctuary. I know. But whatever that madman