WOLF DAWN: Science Fiction Thriller/ Romance (Forsaken Worlds) Read Online Free Page A

his voice trailed off. What could she tell him? He was only a child!
The Seer was wrong.
His people would escape. His mind strayed for a moment, drawn to the details of mass departure once more. His teeth clenched.
No
. Jarith thrust his thoughts aside and forced a smile. “Just tell Ash that I love him.”
    As Sartha boarded
Assurance
Jarith projected a positive mental touch to his wife. He felt the same confident promise radiating from her. Having never hidden a thought or feeling from each other, they did so now with unvoiced agreement. Each hid a crushing fear. The future was dark but not unknown: it had been cast.
    The airlock doors closed with the finality of a burial vault. Tynan pulled restively against his collar, whined and barked and barked. Jarith kept a firm grip on the animal’s lead. His rapid stride took them from the liftoff area, to a safe distance where they both watched and waited.
    Minutes later, with a circle of blue flame,
Assurance
was gone.
    Tynan’s agitation and restlessness vanished. The wolfhound sat unmoving. The King too remained still. He stood staring at the empty sky well after
Assurance
was out of sight. King Jarith Chayton’s features were strained and ashen, his emotions no longer concealed.
    Despair was written across his face, obvious for all to see — even to those not Trueborn.

2. The Dark Sankomin
    All souls suffer the Dark Sankomin. If one is in the present, if the mind remains in attendance, the Sankomin cannot seize or bind. The Sankomin is a combination of all that has been and all that can be. It is not evil in itself: it merely is. Time is like a river and the mind is the water. When the water flows, all is well and sequential, in chronological order. However, these past events, encompassing all the conscious feelings within them — thought, pain and emotion — can fall on one en masse. They attach to one’s soul like metal filings drawn to a magnet. At times presenting as burdened river eddies, they dam the river and the mind becomes bound. It will not flow. The Dark Sankomin is solid, a heavy mass in the mind, a dark burden to the soul. Unresolved, it will cause madness and despair.
    — Seer Foweraker,
The Interpretations
    A sh woke, temporarily disoriented by unfamiliar surroundings. This was not his bed. He was in a bunk, secured by protective webbing. Taking a deep breath of air that had a recycled tang, Ash both felt and heard a rhythmic kind of hum.
    I’m on a spaceship, traveling to another world.
    But why? Nothing made sense. They had left in a departure so secret that even he didn’t know until the last moment. A United Worlds Government warship,
Conqueror,
had been in orbit around Delian. Warships protected the Freeworlds, yet
Conqueror
seemed somehow menacing. Was that why they had left? Could they actually be running away?
    He studied the King’s Mirror, the blue armguard that circled his thigh. It looked silly there, but it was too big for his thin arm. His father had given it to him, yet the talisman belonged with the King. Everyone knew that. He had tried to give it to his mother for safekeeping, but she had refused, insisting he wear it at all times.
    Rolling on to his back, Ash stared at the concave structure above him and considered the matter. There were heavy restrictions on space travel; it was a privilege granted only to members of the government or the armed services. He was lucky to be on
Assurance
. But his unanswered questions, combined with his mother’s anxiety, took away the pleasure of being in space. Ash grimaced, remembering the last of a stream of questions he had asked her.
    His mother had secrets.
    Ash knew about secrets, because he had secrets of his own. He thought of Tynan back on Delian and wished he was here. It felt strange to be without him. Ash had been drawn to Tynan at first sight. Separate from his litter mates, solemn and a little regal, the lonely little creature had reminded him of himself. They had been together