Read Online Born of Fire (The Cloud Warrior Saga Book 8) by D.K. Holmberg - Free Book Online Page A

of which he was entirely prepared to answer.
    He pushed on the door again, but the lock was stout. He could force it open, but that wasn’t the message he wanted to send.
    No, he needed to reach the archives another way. And that meant through the palace.

    * * *
    A t this time of day , the palace was full of activity. Servants hurried in and out of the wide open door, some carrying bundles, others with baskets for items that might be needed inside. Tan stood on the edge of the lawn, watching for a moment. In some ways, the activity was no different than what he’d seen in Par-shon, but there had been an undercurrent of fear mixed in. Here, there was nothing other than a sense of purpose.
    A few of the servants saw him and nodded. Tan had become well known around the palace, at least enough where they recognized his face and made a point of addressing him. Partly that was because of the amount of time he spent with Roine, but some of that was because of the ring naming him Athan. It carried the weight of his title and within the palace especially, that title carried the most weight.
    But it had been weeks since he’d been here.
    Tan sighed and made his way into the palace, pausing again in the entryway. Portraits of past kings lined the hall to his right, and a familiar voice came from a room at the end of the hall.
    All he’d wanted to do was to reach the archives and have some time there, but if Roine discovered that he’d come to the palace and not stopped, he’d be disappointed. Worse than Roine, if Zephra learned that Tan hadn’t stopped, she’d be angry.
    Neither appealed to him.
    As he made his way along the corridor, Roine’s voice grew louder. Tan stopped outside the great hall to wait. The line of portraits hadn’t changed since he’d been here last, but there was an addition that surprised him: Althem.
    Stopping in front of the portrait, he studied the hardened face and the intense eyes of a man who had nearly destroyed the kingdoms. Tan had only met him a few times. The first time, Althem had seemed warm and friendly. Now, he wondered if Althem had been shaping him, though it was possible that Amia’s shaping had protected him. The second time had been when he and Asboel had confronted Althem as he tried to use the artifact. It was a dangerous creation, and one that Tan still didn’t understand. Had Tan not had full command of his abilities, he would have failed. As it was, he had nearly lost Asboel and had used the trapped power of the artifact to save his friend that time. If he only still had it…
    But he couldn’t think like that. Doing so didn’t help him today, and it didn’t honor the memory Asboel would have wanted him to maintain.
    “Tannen.”
    Tan turned to Roine, who now stood in the doorway to the great hall. He hadn’t sensed him approaching. “You’ve added another portrait.”
    Roine glanced at the portrait. “It seemed fitting that he be added.”
    “Even after everything that he did?”
    “Do you think that all these kings and queens ruled as you would have?” Roine asked, pulling his eyes away from the portraits. He motioned down the hall, to the dozens and dozens of portraits, some faded by time, leaving little more than a blur of what the image should be. “They are a reminder—good and bad—of the kind of rule the kingdoms have known. Some… some have been better than others.”
    “And some thought to shape the kingdoms and force an image of what they wanted.”
    Roine chuckled. “That might have been the worst. Better to have the reminder of his rule than to remove it and forget. After everything that he did, the hidden atrocities,” he said, shaking his head as he touched his temples, “some we may never fully understand, we need to maintain the reminder. Without it, it might be too easy to forget.”
    Tan studied the portrait of Althem. At least the artist had cast him in a dark light, leaving his eyes with an awful intensity. “When will yours hang