Read By Darkness Hid for Free Online

“You’ll come with me?”
    Her eyes glistened in the distant moonlight. Her breath grew ragged, and she looked down at her hands, which were still holding the shirt against his chest.
    He moved his hands up her shoulders and took the sides of her face in his palms. “Gren?”
    She lifted her gaze to his. Tears streaked down to her chin. He wiped them away with his thumbs. “I’ll talk to your father soon. Sir Gavin promised me a real sword. Any day now he’ll publicly declare me a squire. Then surely your father will at least—”
    “Grendolyn? Are you out there?”
    Gren stiffened at the sound of her mother’s voice. “I have to go. Happy coming-of-age day, Achan.” She bounced up to kiss his cheek and darted out from behind the frame, leaving Achan alone.
    *          *          *
    A vast allown tree grew outside Sitna Manor. The trunk was as thick as two grown men, and its long upper branches splayed out against the blue sky. It loomed over the curve of the SiderosRiver at the edge of a field beside the stronghold.
    In the summer, the tree made a shady haven that was Achan’s favorite place to sit and watch the setting sun. Today, the tree looked lonely with its bare branches reaching up to the heavens as if pleading for Dendron to bring warmth sooner. No tree around compared to its glory. Achan felt drawn to it.
    His stomach full from a second lunch with Sir Gavin, Achan set off toward the allown tree to meet Gren. It was less cold today than it had been. Spring had arrived. He trudged across the field, swinging his wooden sword to beat the tall, dead grass out of his path. The sword already felt light and familiar in his grip.
    Gren leaned against the thick trunk. The barren branches bounced in the chill wind and cast dancing spider web shadows over her. The vast, brown SiderosRiver flowed past three paces from Gren’s feet. Her chestnut hair blew to the other side of her head, baring her chapped and rosy cheeks. Why couldn’t the weaver make his daughter something warmer for the winter cold? Her coarse linen cloak was too drafty and Gren too flighty to remember the hood.
    If Achan had owned a cloak, he would’ve offered it.
    He hid the sword behind him and approached, his trousers swishing in the grass. Gren turned, her eyes rimmed in red. She’d been crying. Achan wanted to say something to comfort her but didn’t know what. Instead of words, he pulled the wooden sword from behind his back.
    Her brown eyes widened and her lips parted in a slow smile. “Oh, Achan! You’re really going to become a Kingsguard knight.”
    He knelt between the bumpy roots beside her and gasped a laugh. “I never thought my station could change. The gods have blessed me greatly, Gren.”
    She rose to her knees. “Well, show me how it’s used…on that leaning poplar.” Gren pointed at a frail tree right at the edge of the river. The wind had already bested the poor sapling. Its roots poked out from the soil on one side, and the flimsy trunk leaned over so far the barren branches swam lazily in the swift, brown current.
    Achan shrugged, happy to please Gren. He trudged toward the cockeyed sapling and pressed the tip of the wooden sword against the flaky trunk. “Halt, you foul excuse for a tree! In the name of Dendron, god of nature, surrender! Or I shall cut you into tinder for my fire.”
    Gren’s merry giggle floated on the wind.
    Though Achan felt incredibly silly, he warmed to her smile, so he played along. He sucked in a sharp breath. “You dare speak that way in the presence of this fine lady? I shall run you through!” He whacked the blade against the tree again and again, more like chopping wood than Sir Gavin’s swordplay. The pitiful sapling hunched lower, the trunk sinking into the yellow grass, the upper branches into the river.
    The ground beneath Achan’s feet shifted. A deep cracking sent him scuttling back from the river bank. The tree, dragging a clump of roots and soil, ripped