Read Return of the Guardian-King for Free Online

been burned in Execution Square before a crowd of hundreds—including Gillard himself—she’d finally surrendered to the reality of his death. A conclusion that had only been strengthened as the months passed and no word came from Kiriath to challenge it.
    Then, about six weeks ago, she’d started dreaming again—intermittently at first, but lately almost every night. Dreams of mist and rock and emptiness, where she wandered aimlessly. The sense of evil was always strong in them. But so had been the sense of her dead husband, as if he was on the verge of bursting into her presence and driving away the evil that threatened her.
    Her granny, steeped in the old ways, would have said he was trying to reach her from the grave. Trap was convinced it was something else.
    The wolf-thing’s crimson eyes flashed in her mind, too vivid for a dream, as if somehow the beast observed her even now. And, perhaps, encouraged her grief. She glanced at the ceiling shadows, wondering if rhu’ema floated there now, watching her. A chill shivered across her shoulders.
    She shoved back the covers and padded barefoot into the adjoining chamber. Its wide, windowed doors looked out on the plain from which the palace of Fannath Rill arose, built atop a long rocky outcropping in the midst of the Ruk Ankrill, and as such the highest point in all the Fairiron Plain. Her window and balcony faced northeast to where the far edge of the river gleamed beyond the palace’s ancient crenellated battlements. Beyond its stone-worked banks, a sea of tile roofs interspersed with autumn-paled foliage stretched into lavender haze.
    The sky glowed in the east, while the rest remained dark and star specked. A flock of geese arrowed south toward their winter feeding grounds. It was a beautiful, quiet dawn. A gift from Eidon she might enjoy, or ignore for the sake of lamenting her losses. . . .
    But the dreams always stirred up the grief again, opening the many trails down which her thoughts might travel toward heartache, self-pity, and bitterness. And the smoldering sense of outrage at having been betrayed by Eidon himself.
    But that is your Shadow talking, for you have not been betrayed, though that is exactly what your enemies want you to think. They are the ones who did this, hoping to make you turn your back on him. Hoping you will just sink down in your sorrows and never get up again .
    Grimly she turned from the window to sidle around the nearby desk and sit before the open volume of the Second Word she’d left there last night. Conjuring a kelistar, she set it on the stand, recalling fiercely that Eidon had given her a beloved husband and beautiful sons in whom she had reveled for five glorious years. Was that not enough? Was that not far more than she had ever dreamed of having? If he had taken them back already, how could she complain?
    Barely had she started to read, however, when her eyes strayed to the fold of parchment protruding from the pages. She slid it free and unfolded it. The creases were soft and supple, the paper tearstained. She touched the inked letters scrawled across it, imagining the long-fingered hand that had inscribed its precious words.
    The tears returned in force now, and she let them flow until she couldn’t see the words. Not that she needed to anymore.
    The truest love of all is when a man gives his life for those he loves. This is what I believe Eidon has called me to do. And you must abide it, my heart .
    She’d seen the look in Abramm’s eyes that day on the mall outside Springerlan’s High Court Chamber, the heart-wrenching look of good-bye mingled with grim determination. She knew him well enough, understood the situation well enough to grasp what he’d intended even then, and it had appalled her. The moment she’d exited the coach and seen the galley ship he’d arranged to carry her and the others away, she’d turned to rush back to the city, determined to stop him. Trap had barred her way, his eyes wild with