Read Sword for Free Online

someday, Devin."
    "Indeed, my lord. Some... other day, perhaps?"
    Cian snorted, but let him go. “Good luck,” he grunted.
    "Thank you!" Devin said fervently, and bolted as Emayn came skidding to a halt in front of Cian and Alys. Two maids carrying linens leapt aside as he barreled past. Behind him, Devin could hear Cian asking his magic tutor something about the moon phase, bless him, followed by Emayn's slightly frantic reply. He threw himself around a corner, nearly collided with a footman, and raced down the next passage that offered itself without a thought except away .
    It turned out to be a cul-de-sac, gods help him, and Cian wasn’t going to hold Emayn much longer.
    Desperate, he turned, and turned again, trying to tell just from the look of the shut doors if any of the rooms’ occupants would welcome a general’s son with trouble on his heels. Listening hard, he heard, with a certain despair, Baron Brisham’s nasal voice behind one of the doors. The words were muffled, but the anger in his tone was enough to make Devin pause.
    “We shall have to… if he does not accede… for her own sake.”
    “There are other options.”
    Curiosity held him in place. He didn’t recognize the other voice, though it was easier to make out. It didn’t sound like a servant, or a soldier: Brisham, rumor had it, treated his staff like unwelcome houseguests, and they spoke to him softly. This person had the tone of an equal, or at least someone who thought he was.
    Baron Brisham of Sevassis province had arrived only a mere month after Kyali had disappeared into the mountains, dragging a train of attendants and cooking staff with him and kicking up a storm of gossip and confusion. Western barons came East only for the great affairs of state—none of which, so far as he knew, were planned for some time.
    It had made his father suspicious, which in turn made Devin wary. He stepped closer and tried to listen simultaneously for Brisham’s words and Emayn’s footsteps.
    "And what of the other one?" the baron asked.
    "No sign. But we know where she has run to, my lord."
    "Not good enough!"
    A shout from the main corridor had him leaning away from the door: Emayn had escaped Cian and Alys.
    “What was that?" Brisham snapped from inside.
    Devin spun and ran, even knowing it was pointless; there was nowhere to go. His heart was pounding so hard he could feel its beats in his temples, and it had nothing—well, little—to do with his magic tutor's wrath.
    Had they been talking about his sister in that room? And if so, did that mean more of the West than Baron Walderan wanted Kyali dead?
    Anger grew in him, grew so fast he didn’t have time to swallow it down with reason or cool it with caution. And with it, inevitably, ever since the day he'd picked up a fiddle and shattered all the windows on the first floor of his father's house, came his unruly Gift. He flinched as the tallow candles in the sconce across from him flipped out of their holders to rattle on the floor. He pressed his back to the wall on the other side of a jutting lintel, then pressed his hands to his forehead.
    “Not now,” he hissed.
    He was in more than enough trouble already.
    Emayn's steps came to a halt. There was a scrape as the door that hid Baron Brisham first unlatched and then slid open, and Devin pressed further back, hopeless as it was. He didn't think he could look Brisham in the face right now and pretend all was well. He thought he might strike the man. He was actually shaking with fury.
    "Devin," came a whisper from just beside him, startling him badly. He looked around, seeing nothing, and then the tapestry to his left twitched.
    What in the hells ?
    "Get in here!" the tapestry whispered fiercely.
    Not about to question the provenance of such a well-timed gift, Devin flung the tapestry over himself, received a faceful of dust, and saw Taireasa looking up at him from a shadowed space in the stone wall. She got a fistful of his doublet and yanked