Moonblood (Tales of Goldstone Wood Book #3) Read Online Free

Moonblood (Tales of Goldstone Wood Book #3)
Book: Moonblood (Tales of Goldstone Wood Book #3) Read Online Free
Author: Anne Elisabeth Stengl
Tags: FIC042000, FIC042080, FIC026000
Pages:
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and hooves she wore. “It’s tearing her up,” she muttered as she lost sight of the girl. “This marriage of the prince’s. It’s tearing her to pieces inside. Light of Lumé above, I wish we’d never met him!”
    A shadow passed over the sun.
    Beana shivered and looked up, squinting. That was no cloud. Perhaps a bird. But it must have been a large one, an eagle even, to make that shadow.
    A moment later, she thought she caught a familiar scent on the wind. A scent of poison and of anger. But it vanished, and she told herself it was nothing more than the remnants of the Dragon’s work.
    After all, Beana had bigger things to worry about.

    Festive music began to play as the guests of the Eldest arrived and filled the new hall to celebrate their prince and his bride to be. Women in gaudy colors danced with men in silken garments, and their smiles flashed as bright as their jewels, so determined were they to rejoice and forget the nightmare in which they had so recently lived.
    Prince Lionheart met Lady Daylily at the door and gave her his arm as support when they entered. Each wore a smile that outshone all the paper lanterns, but they did not look at each other. Cheers rose up from the assembly, drowning the music.
    A burst of fire lit the Wilderlands for an instant. A few moments later, a solitary figure began to climb the gorge.

2
    E VERYONE AT THE BANQUET watched the prince from behind their smiles.
    He was not the boy they remembered. A far cry from it. In the five years of his exile, he had grown into a man. His frame had filled out, though he would never be large, and his face was well shaped behind a black beard. As he sat at the right hand of King Hawkeye, it was impossible not to see the resemblance between father and son. Save for the set of his eyes. Those had the deep-set sharpness of his mother, Queen Starflower’s, may she rest peacefully with the Mothers of Old. But the expression in his was nothing like that of the dead queen. No, hers was always an expression of strength. Her gaze could pierce the soul of any man in the Eldest’s court and wrest his secrets from him in a moment.
    Lionheart’s, by contrast, was that of a haunted man.
    “Did he fight the Dragon?”
    Lionheart could almost hear the whispers passing from table to table. Every time a lady of the court leaned close to her neighbor to whisper something behind her fan, he could have sworn he heard the words. He found it nearly impossible to concentrate on the flow of talk going on around him. His bride to be sat on his left, carrying on a lively conversation with her father, the Baron of Middlecrescent, and with Lionheart’s cousin, Foxbrush.
    At least Daylily’s part of the conversation was lively. Her father spoke hardly a word but kept glancing from Lionheart to King Hawkeye and back again, sometimes turning to look at Foxbrush. And Foxbrush answered only in mutters and refused to meet anyone’s gaze.
    Poor Foxbrush. Lionheart took a moment from his own concerns to spare his cousin a pitying thought. He was so far gone in love with Daylily, Lionheart could feel the jealousy seeping from him.
    Not that Foxbrush would ever have had the courage to speak up to her himself. He was much more comfortable buried in his academic pursuits. No, Foxbrush would never have what it took to marry a woman like Daylily. Daylily was a consort fit for a king.
    You will be king, sweet prince, spoke the cold voice in Lionheart’s head. For an instant, he saw white eyes before his own. I have promised you your dream, and your dream you will have.
    The vision vanished, and Lionheart found himself eye to eye with Baron Middlecrescent. He quickly dropped his gaze. The baron always reminded him of a cross between a fish and a bulldog, all staring eyes and jaw. Thank the Lights Above, Daylily didn’t take after him!
    “Did he fight the Dragon?”
    Lionheart ground his teeth and pinched the bridge of his nose. The talk in the banquet hall whirled in his
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