Word of Traitors: Legacy of Dhakaan - Book 2 Read Online Free Page A

warrior wearing the red corded armband that signified service to Khaar Mbar’ost standing outside it. Aruget, one of the loyal warriors assigned by Haruuc to act as a personal guard to Vounn and Ashi d’Deneith. No one would interrupt them as long as he stood guard.
    The chamber beyond was the same luxurious waiting room for dignitaries where they—she, Dagii, Geth, Ashi, the gnome scholar Midian Mit Davandi, and Chetiin—had been deposited on their return to Khaar Mbar’ost bearing the Rod of Kings. Ashi waswaiting for them, pacing the room like a cat. Her dark gold hair had been drawn back, revealing the intricate lines of the powerful dragonmark, a rare Siberys Mark, that patterned her neck—and her shoulders, back, arms, her entire body save the palms of her hands and a narrow strip between her cheeks and her brow. Two small gold rings that pierced her lower lip were the only sign that less than a year ago, Ashi had been a savage hunter of the Shadow Marches before discovering her heritage in House Deneith, and before the manifestation of the mark that allowed her to shield minds and block powerful divinations.
    At the opening of the door, she looked up, her mouth framing a greeting. Geth didn’t give any of them time to speak. With a snarl of frustration, the shifter twisted his torso and hurled the Rod of Kings into a large, ornately framed mirror that hung above a sideboard.
    The glass exploded out in a shower of sharp fragments. The rod bounced off the thin wooden backing, hit the sideboard hard enough to gouge it, and fell to the floor with the heavy clang of solid metal. Ashi’s words turned into a yell of surprise and the door slammed open as Aruget charged in.
    Geth turned on him. “Out!”
    The guard stepped back and closed the door without a word. Ekhaas went over and looked down at the rod. The rune-carved shaft was unmarked. She would have picked it up, but Geth stopped her.
    “Don’t touch it,” he said. “Don’t anybody touch it.” Feet crunching on the broken mirror, he retrieved the rod, handling it as if it were a snake. Geth grimaced and dropped back into one of the room’s chairs. His voice was a growl. “Chetiin said something to me after he killed Haruuc, just before he escaped. He said, ‘We swore we would do what we had to.’”
    “He thought Haruuc had discovered the power of the rod,” said Ekhaas. Memory of the rod’s hold over her mind brought her ears low. There had been as much hope of resisting it as of holding back a flood with a leaking bucket.
    “He should have talked to the rest of us.” Dagii’s face was grim.
    “I wish he had,” said Geth. “Because if that’s what he was thinking, he was wrong.” He turned the rod in his hands, and for amoment Ekhaas thought he might throw it again, but then he stood and drew Wrath. Forged from the same twilight-purple byeshk as the rod, the sword was massive and heavy, sharp on one edge and deeply notched on the other, a
dar
design that hadn’t changed much in thousands of years. “Wrath … talks to me. In a way. Sometimes it gives me a nudge, pushing me to act the way a hero would. Occasionally it puts heroic words in my mouth. It’s not just the Sword of Heroes. It’s a sword that makes heroes.”
    In the other hand, he hefted the Rod of Kings. “The rod is the same. Just before Keraal’s punishment, Haruuc and I had an argument. All the time that we were carrying the rod back to Rhukaan Draal, I was the only one to touch it. Wrath doesn’t just protect me from the rod’s power of command—it shields me from all of the rod’s power. When Haruuc took up the rod, he didn’t have that protection. A hero inspires. A king rules.” He bared his teeth. “From the moment he first held the rod, it fed him the memories of the Dhakaani emperors.”
    Dagii’s ears rose.
“Maabet
. The rod has been pushing Haruuc to act like a king?”
    “Not a king. An emperor.” Geth lowered both sword and rod. “Haruuc said the