The Will of the Empress Read Online Free

out the back door, into the garden. It was cold, for Emelan, wintertime around the Pebbled Sea, but Briar’s roll was made for Gyongxe winters. It was more than adequate for a night without rain, even in Storm Moon. He laid it out on the garden path and slid between the covers, plants and vines in full slumber allaround him. He was asleep the moment he pulled the blankets up around his chin.
    He heard the chime of temple bells, summoning Earth temple dedicates to the midnight services that honored their gods. As he fell back into his dreams, flames roared up around him, throwing nightmare shadows on his eyelids. In the distance, triumphant warriors shouted and people shrieked. The wind carried the scent of blood and smoke to his nostrils.
    Burning carpets wrapped around him. Briar fought to get free while boulders shot from catapults smashed temple walls to rubble.
    Briar gasped and sat up. Sweat poured over his face, stinging in his eyes. He’d ripped his bedroll apart in his struggles, flinging blankets into the winter garden. Shuddering, he gulped in lungfuls of cold air, trying to cleanse his nose and throat of the lingering reek of burning wood and bodies. As his head cleared, he drew up his knees and wrapped his arms around them. Resting his face against his legs, he began to cry.
    “It was the bell for services, wasn’t it?” Rosethorn was hunkered down close by, a shadow among shadows. She spoke with a trace of a slur.
    Briar scrubbed his face on his knees before he looked up. “Bells?” he asked.
    Rosethorn had her own share of bad dreams from the last two years. “You slept fine on the ship, with hardly anynightmares. But now you’re in temple walls, surrounded by temple sounds, including the calls to midnight service. It started the dreams again. You won’t even be able to stay here a few days, will you?”
    If she was anyone else, maybe I’d lie, Briar thought. But she was there. She knows. “I jump just seeing all the different color robes,” he said wearily. “Doesn’t matter that the folk here are different races for the most part. We even use the same kind of incense they did back there.” He shrugged. “Evvy will be all right,” he said. “Once the stone mages here start teaching her, she’ll be busy. And I’ll be around.” Briar sighed. “So I’ll tell her when she gets up. I’ll see tomorrow if Daja’s got room for me.”
    Rosethorn got to her feet with a wince and offered Briar a hand. “I doubt that Daja would write to say she has a floor of the house opening onto the garden set aside for you if she didn’t mean for you to live there,” she said dryly as she helped him to his feet. “And Briar, if the dreams don’t stop, you should see a soul-healer about them.”
    Briar shrugged impatiently and picked up his things. “They’re just dreams , Rosethorn.”
    “But you see and hear things sometimes, and smell things that aren’t there. You’re jumpy and irritable,” Rosethorn pointed out.
    When Briar glared at her, she shrugged, too. “I’m the same. I don’t mean to put it off. Terrible events have long-lasting effects, boy. They can poison our lives.”
    “I won’t let them,” Briar said, his voice harsh. “That’s one victory the Yanjing emperor don’t get.”
    Folding blankets over her arm, Rosethorn looked at him. “There’s something I don’t understand,” she remarked abruptly. “We’re having a perfectly clear conversation right now. Before we journeyed east, if I wanted to talk to you, I would have to slip every word in between five or six from the girls in your mind. The four of you were always talking.” She tapped her forehead with a finger to indicate what she meant. “Now, all your attention is right here. And another thing. Why weren’t they on our doorstep the moment we came home? Tris and Daja are back; Lark said as much. Did you tell them not to come? You aren’t the only one who would like to see them, you know.”
    “I’m not