War of the Princes 03: Monarch Read Online Free

pass, and history begins to blend with fiction. People believe wrong things about the blue horse. Again, I educate them. Again, they forget. Five hundred years pass with this dance. I teach them, they forget. I teach them, they forget. Tales grow taller, fact all but disintegrates, and people begin to disbelieve in their own historical documentation of the blue horse.
    “ You see, every civilization of every age in time thinks itself to be brighter, smarter, better than the last. They are not. Humanity has always been the same. The facts about Lodestones went out of fashion long ago, and I will not spend eternity wrestling truth into a people who do not care to have it. One man alone cannot defend against a plague of ignorance that can only be treated and never cured. I have learned this.
    “ In part, I am guilty for your friend Sterling's death. I was unprepared to find Lodestones here, now, after so many hundreds of years. My people were uneducated. Until some few months ago, all but the most studious Historians believed Lodestones to be little more than minerals, mined from some foreign mountain. Lauren Hest should have known that draining a Lodestone was far beyond her capacity. Only one living being is strong enough to consume a Lodestone.”
    “ The Monarch,” I said for him, openly glaring at his shadowy figure. For all I knew, the war machine was as alive as the mecha-organic Lurchers that lived in the hills surrounding the Haven Mountains.
    “ Living being ,” he corrected me like I was utterly stupid. What other living being could drain a Lodestone?
    I blanched. “You?” I'd figured draining one of us and surviving was impossible. I was wrong. So far, during our strange discourse, I'd been seething; letting everything he said drift through one ear and out the other. All I wanted was to be free of this place. Or to make him pay for what he'd done. My skin prickled at being so close to one of the two most dangerous men in the world. But when it dawned on me that he, the Prince of Shadows, could drain Lodestones and survive, everything he was saying became very real. Every detail was important. I scrambled inwardly, trying to recall every word he'd spoken and adhere it to my memory.
    This being, this Prince, could destroy me and live long enough to celebrate it. I should have been afraid, but I was just too angry. “You really are immortal,” I thought aloud.
    I could see his teeth flash as he smiled. “It has never been proven otherwise.”
    “ Let me go.”
    “ No.”
    “ Are you going to kill me?” I asked him. Was I strong enough to fight? Not with these shadow chasers leeching off my every strike.
    Raserion's tone changed. “No.” He said it as though I'd asked him if he wanted to share a biscotti.
    “ What do you want from me?”
    “ Yes,” he said like he was greatly pleased. “Yes. Everyone wants something. It is the sole source for all interaction. I do want something from you, and you want something from me.”
    “ No I don't,” I snapped. If only there was another way I could escape. I attempted to use the Pull, my Ability to find whatever I sought. I focused on finding the hall of Breakwater keep where I'd fallen. The result was chaotic, and painful. If the Pull were a compass, the needle would have been spinning out of control. I felt the need to walk in every direction. I couldn’t understand it.
    “ On the contrary, you want many things from me, Lodestone.” He waved a hand and a shape began to grow and twist from the ground at his feet. It stretched and contorted, reaching over the stream until it planted down beside me to form a narrow bridge. Mist swirled around it, hissing like water hitting a fire.
    Raserion stepped up onto the bridge and began to cross, moving toward me.
    “Don't come any closer!” I warned him. If only I weren't helpless. I cast about, searching for a weapon or a way to defend myself, but I found nothing but shadows. This was his place. What chance could