The Farthest Gate (The White Rose Book 1) Read Online Free Page A

around me like poisonous adders as I advanced.
    I neared the fountain and found its basin a thin shell-like substance of luminous pink.  The liquid sound teased my thirst.  I noticed the streamers were red.  Wine ?  I shuddered as a strong metallic odor stole over me.  No.  B lood !   My stomach threatened to flip in revulsion, but I forbade distress from showing, fearing such vulnerability would invite attack.  In this place, I would have to armor myself with boldness and courage.  It might be enough.  It had to be.
    Numerous avenues opened onto the courtyard.  Past the fountain lay a broad flight of marble steps leading to a cathedral made entirely of ruddy bits of glass, making it look as if it had been broken and fitted back together—like the pieces of my heart.
    “ Phillippe,” I murmured a promise though he could not hear it, “I will not let this place keep you.  The Gamesman must give back your soul when I beat him.”
    A piercing chime of vibrating crystal filled the courtyard, slashing across the whispering as lords and ladies drew daggers.  My hand stayed on my sword hilt in readiness even though none looked my way.  Baring white-scarred wrists, they converged on the basin, ringing it.  Their blades sliced the scars open.  Crimson spilled from their veins into the fountain .
    Sickened, I hurried on, turning back only once to view the courtyard before abandoning the area.  The wall stopped moving and a new gate appeared.  This one had a silver oak crest emblazoned upon it.  There had to be some significance to the change—other than to make me feel trapped within the city, but I could not see it.  I set the matter aside to worry over later.
    I followed a brick street that led past shops where gray-fleshed customers traded gleaming shards of light for common items.
    “This place makes no sense,” I complained under my breath.
    “Does it not?”
    The raspy voice made me turn, but I waited to draw my sword, not wanting to create a situation where there might be none.  A man stood there with a noose around his neck that trailed several feet of rope.  His hands were tied behind his back.  His head canted as though his neck were broken.  He shifted black eyes toward the customers.
    “They spent their lives trading dreams for substance—finally dying with neither.  The pattern they set in life is their pattern in death.”
    “And those feeding the fountain…?” I asked.
    “Having squandered life’s blood through suicide and warfare, they are damned to do so forever, wherever, whenever the city fountains call.”  He shrugged.  “Something must drive the buried engines and lubricate the gears.”  He paused, staring into my eyes.  “You must be new.  Despair has not yet attached itself to you.”
    “Despair?  Is that your name, then?  You have certainly sought me out .”
    “I will wear whatever name pleases you.  Let me give you some advice—trust nothing you find here.  While one person engages your attention, others may strike from the shadows.”
    My scalp prickled with premonition.  I whirled and scraped my sword free, catching a pair of flashing blades, barely deflecting them.  The strength of the attack bore me back a step.  After that, I held fast.  Trained by my father, a famed sword-master, my arm acted like a spring, yielding and then recoiling.  My point scribed a small circle then struck home past ribs, puncturing a lung.  One man fell.  I maneuvered to keep the hanged man in view; he made no move to interfere.  His hands were tied securely behind him—it was no ruse. 
    The second swordsman had his head strapped on his neck with leather ties, as if it he’d once come too close to an executioner’s axe.  Our rapiers sang against each other in a furious exchange of thrust and parry.  I hissed, feeling a sting along my side.  We entered an intimate grapple as he seized my sword arm with his free hand.  I stole a keen-edged dagger from his belt,