Veil of the Dragon (Prophecy of the Evarun) Read Online Free

Veil of the Dragon (Prophecy of the Evarun)
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and the soft press of lips beneath.
     
    Faerowyn.
     
    A vision of her, or her spirit, stood against the glow of the tavern door. Hearth and lamp light settled like a halo about her. Beneath a black cowl, her crimson veil burned with the brilliance of embers. Her dark eyes called to him just as they used to.
     
    But it wasn’t her. It couldn’t be.
     
    Still he whispered her name, “Faerowyn.” His voice sounded hollow and grievous against the storm.
     
    The distance vanished. Her cold hand clutched his.
     
    Beneath her veil, the scent of jasmine fled before the nauseous sweet smell of decay. Thick, garish paint bled in the blowing rain. A hag, her skin gray and faded. A shadow turned within her. She stared back at him, beholding nothing. 
     
    Still her hand gripped him, her voice a whisper he already knew well. 
     
    “Chaelus.”
     
    Chaelus urged Idyliss past her.
     
    Lightning split the night again, and the longhouses succumbed beneath the brilliant glow as he rode. Beyond, the fields lay fallow and wasted, littered with the bloated filth of forgotten beast and harvest.
     
    The storm light dimmed. The warmth of fire beckoned from beyond a narrow doorway, a thin pillar of azure smoke rising from the center of the chapel’s conical roof.
     
    Carvings marked the lintel above the door: the sigil of the House of Waith resting within the sacred circle of the Creator. 
     
    The door moaned in the wind. It opened to the bent silhouette of a man awash in the glow beyond. Chaelus found no voice to call out, but the man raised his own aged voice above the tempest. 
     
    “What do you seek?”
     
    Chaelus dropped from Idyliss, his hand on Sundengal. The length of the happas and the eyes of the longhouses were empty. The whisper of the old woman was silent.
     
    “I seek a priest named Joshua,” Chaelus said. “I’ve come with a boy.” Chaelus withheld the honorific that revealed the boy’s knighthood. “His name is Aaron.”
     
    “Where is he?” 
     
    “He’ll come.”
     
    The man looked beyond him into the growing abyss of the storm. “Then the doorway’s no place for our talk.”
     
    The man weighted himself against a wide branch stave as he retreated through the narrow passage. Chaelus squinted against the light and followed him.
     
    A broad smile stretched the old man’s face, but his eyes revealed little. “If it’s the boy you wait for, then feel welcome. Feel safe. I’m Joshua.” He chewed on his lip. “And you must be Chaelus, once Roan Lord of the House of Malius.”
     
    Chaelus drew his hood back, the sting of rain in his eyes. 
     
    “Don’t fear your past here,” Joshua continued. “It’s but chaff, like so many of the other things we do well to leave behind.” He frowned for a moment as his voice faltered. He placed his hand upon Chaelus’ wrist.
     
    Chaelus winced at the chill, like that of the old woman in the storm.
     
    “Warm yourself by the fire,” Joshua said. “You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.” 
     
    Twelve hammered silver rings hung between the twelve open doorways around them. The flat discs captured the sullen red glow of the fire light. The fragrant musk of incense held thick upon the air. Twelve stone seats surrounded the fire burning in the center of the room; there to wait for the return of the Giver and the twelve whom he would choose. Chaelus sat down beside the fire. He eyed the open doorways, then settled his sight upon the one through which they’d come. Joshua leaned his stave against the wall and raised a small copper cooking pot to a hook above the flame.
     
    Water pooled around his boots. The memory of Faerowyn and the whisper of the old woman wouldn’t fade.
     
    Joshua raised his hollow stare as he stooped over the fire. “You’ll find that many things aren’t what they seem.”
     
    Al-Aaron appeared like a ghost within the doorway.
     
    He held his left arm close to him. It was bound and bloodied. With his other he carried
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