The Farthest Shore (Eden Series Book 3) Read Online Free

islands at all.
    The Turean Archipelago, completely destroyed. A stone lodged in Jash’s throat. She wanted to crumple the parchment, crush it under her feet, burn it.
    Instead she made herself roll it up and thank Enthow—a little curtly, but with none of the bitterness and pain showing in her voice. “More wine,” she said, and her aide hastened to fill the goblets.
    Hewl Rornay drained his in a gulp as Jash set her gift aside. “Anthracite is gone too. They’re mining it down to its bones with slave labor.”
    “For the coal.” Arudle Vates steepled her fingers, watching Jash over the top of them. Her war galley, Surran’s Skin , was the largest in the Turean flotilla after Jash’s own Dreadnaught , but Arudle was so heavily pregnant Jash doubted she could do more than watch while her officers ran the ship. “I’ve heard they need it for their new steam-driven ships.”
    That was another thorn driven deep into Jash’s flesh. She longed for pieces or plans of what exactly propelled the new mainlander ships, the ones that needed no sails, but so far none of her spies on the mainland had obeyed her orders in that regard.
    Hewl leaned forward. He was a southerner from distant Shadow Isle, where people’s extremities turned a deep brownish-black when they came of age. Hewl looked as though he was wearing a mask that extended to his ears, and dark gloves on his hands. Those hands curled into fists.
    “But only three of them around Anthracite now,” he said. “Commander, we should attack. If we seize even one, we can strip it down to its bones, make the mainlanders tell us how to build more—”
    “Don’t be a fool.”
    The cool quiet voice came from the other end of the table, where Daxen Luliok was sprawled in his chair. He slumped lower than everyone else at the table, but Jash thought that was a deliberate disguise for his height. Turning his goblet as if to study the play of light on its surface, he finally looked up to meet Hewl’s stare.
    “And you would be a fool if you attacked.” His voice was lazy too, as if he didn’t notice the way Hewl’s fingers twitched. “They’ve had more than enough time to secure Anthracite and plan their defenses.”
    Jash didn’t trust Daxen, because she had a suspicion he’d drowned his former captain, and even if that man had been a drunken sot, murder was murder. But at least he would never let a need for glory or even revenge prod him into stupidity.
    “Besides, we don’t need any of their ships.” He reached for a chunk of bread. “Mainlander travesties. They don’t even have sails.”
    “What do you say we should do then?” Jash spoke calmly, because it was possible he might have some idea she hadn’t thought of, but he shrugged, dipped the bread into honey sauce and ate it before he continued.
    “We have our own ways,” he said. “Our own methods and devices. Why do we need anything from them?”
    “Because our science isn’t winning the war.” Kier Safrage, the captain of Needledance , turned to her with one hand raised. “No offense meant, Commander. I know of your achievement with brain coral.”
    Jash nodded. No one needed to thank her for that; she’d done it for the islands, even if she was reluctant to take such a risk again. But Kier had a point. The mainlanders could never match Turean science, but that science was all to do with living things. The Tureans had a natural affinity for reshaping flesh, growing it where it did not exist, coaxing it into new forms.
    What they did not have was a similar talent for the unliving, for making intuitive leaps that turned metal and glass into strange new creations. Once she had dredged up the fragments of a new kind of Denalait vessel sent secretly into the Iron Ocean and had taken them to Scorpitale. It had taken all their resources and nearly four years to put the pieces together, to deduce how they worked and then to make something similar. She couldn’t afford any more such projects.
    Kier