Fugitive Prince Read Online Free Page B

measured tap of footsteps upon satin-polished marble.
    The palace sanctum where Prince Lysaer s’Ilessid plied the reins of his government lay far removed from the chopped mud of the practice yard, where the handful of veterans returned from campaign drilled their surviving field troops.
    No secretaries murmured behind closed doors. A lone drudge polished rows of brass latches, her labors methodically silent. The hush felt inert as the vault of a tomb. Three weeks was too soon for the city to assimilate the impact of a fresh and unalloyed tragedy. The burgeoning industry of Avenor, so magnificently restored, seemed
    stalled; as if even the very resonance of power stood mute, stricken numb by the news that even now rocked the five kingdoms.
    Of the forty thousand dedicated men sent to war in the rocky scarps of Vastmark, all but ten thousand had died of the strategy unleashed by the Master of Shadow.
    The declared neutrality of King Eldir’s realm made those casualties no easier to grapple. The ambassador sent by his liege to shoulder today’s dicey audience was a man appointed for patience, and valued for his skeptical outlook. The outraged grief and shocked nerves he encountered made even simple needs difficult. Since the hour of his arrival, he had weathered a brangle with the seneschal’s undersecretary, and before that, a harbormaster’s flash-point temper, to secure his state galley a close anchorage. He chafed at the pressure. To miscall any small point of diplomacy could spark an unforgiving train of consequence.
    For the stakes ran beyond mere potential for bloodshed. The dead-locked struggle between the Prince of the Light and his enigmatic, sworn enemy had widened. Arithon’s works now polarized loyalties, and compromised trade in four kingdoms. Folk named him Spinner of Darkness since Vastmark. Fear of his shadows and rumors of fell sorcery attached to his secretive nature.
    Sensitive to the pitfalls in the tidings he carried, the High King’s ambassador reviewed his firm orders. Then his sovereign lord’s entreaty, unequivocal and clear, given upon his departure: “Your loyalty may come to be tested, and sorely. Lysaer s’Ilessid can be disarmingly persuasive in pursuit of his hatred of Arithon. But the Fellowship Sorcerers grant no credence to his war to destroy the Crown Prince of Rathain. Your errand may well be received in disfavor. Should you find yourself compromised, even imprisoned under wrongful charges, you must keep my realm of Havish uninvolved.”
    If the ambassador regretted the burden of his mission, the moment was lost to back down. The steward escorted him through the arched portals which led to Avenor’s state chambers. Masking unease behind a lift of dark eyebrows, for the credentials from his king had been public and formal, the dignitary found himself admitted through a less imposing side door.
    In the smaller room used for closed hearings, Prince Lysaer s’Ilessid awaited. He was alone. A less imposing man, unattended, might have been overlooked on the dais, with its massive oak table, hedged by tall chairs with their carved and gilded finials, then these dwarfed in turn by the star and crown tapestry, device of Tysan’s past high kings. The woven device masked the east wall, gold on blue beneath the spooled rail of the second-floor gallery.
    Limned by a flood of cold, winter sunlight, this sovereign’s presence filled that lofty well of space as a jewel might rest in a reliquary.
    The dignitary from Havish discovered himself staring, forgetful of protocol or the ingrained polish of court ceremony.
    Fair, gold hair seemed tipped in leaf silver. The eyes were direct, the clear, unflawed blue of matched aquamarine. Where Lysaer s’Ilessid had always owned a powerful, charismatic male beauty, the Vastmark campaign left him changed. Now, his majesty went beyond poise. As steel smelted down and reforged could emerge from the punishment of hammer and anvil to carry a keener edge, the