Read Online Daughter of Blood by Helen Lowe - Free Book Online

fled blindly, filled with the mysterious song that had woken her out of darkness and opened her prison door, leading her past oblivious guards and through gates that opened at a touch. Gradually, as both the song and then the memory of it faded, fear replaced both: the terror that now she was awake, Nerion would find her again, because Nerion had always been able to find her.
    Whenever those memories crowded in, Nhairin would run before them, even if instinct insisted some things could never be outdistanced. Turning away from the Wall of Night, she zigzagged across the Gray Lands in an effort to confuse pursuit. Sometimes she would double back for the same reason, or lie hidden beneath straggling scrub when her lame leg gave out. She was badly out of condition, but whenever she stopped fear would swirl to the surface again, driving her on as soon as scant breath and her leg permitted.
    She might be unfit and only just released from the darkness—the Madness, Nhairin thought, shuddering because release brought knowledge together with memory—but at least she had snatched up some weapons and supplies as the song led her out of Westwind Hold. As well as a waterbottle and a pouch of food, she had a dagger, a bow, and a quiver full of arrows, and was soon thankful for all three. Gray Lands’ game might be scant and wary, but Nhairin saw plenty of ’spawn sign, far more than she remembered when fleeing this way with Malian and the small company from Night.
    Her face, already disfigured by the old scar that cut across it from temple to chin, twisted further as she recalled the end of that journey, when Nerion’s mind-whisper had urged her to kill Malian’s friend, Kalan, with his inconvenient ability to turn away seeking minds. She had tried to do it, too . . . Nhairin swallowed against the dust that clogged her throat and sipped tepid water from the flask, reflecting that she would much prefer not to remember. And, in fact, the Madness had flooded in very soon after that.
    Perhaps, she thought now—stoppering the bottle without a second sip, to ensure it lasted—because it was easier to give in to the roiling chaos of Jaransor, which had begun pressing at her mind as soon as she crossed the Telimbras, than to live with the shame of her actions. She recalled, too, how other whisperers had reinforced Nerion’s compulsion after the attempt to knife the boy had failed. Their combined pressure had sliced through Nhairin’s mind like blades, insisting that she “pursue” and “slay” after Kalan and Malian had fled from her into low-lying cloud.
    From what Nhairin could remember of her guards’ conversation, the background to her long sojourn in the Madness, Malian and Kalan had died later anyway, just as Kyr and Lira had fallen while attempting to delay the Swarm pursuit. So it was all for nothing, Nhairin thought. If Malian had lived, she might have contemplated returning to the Wall for her sake, but not now. In fact, she would not go anyplace those from her past might think to look, especially Nerion.
    Terror welled again as Nhairin recalled her childhood friend’s unerring ability to locate her, however carefully she hid. But I can’t dwell on that, she told herself: I mustn’t think about Nerion at all. I have to keep moving or find somewhere safe, someplace she would never associate with me.
    The extent of darkspawn sign ruled out travel by night, since darkness would aid most ’spawn’s stalking abilities more than it concealed her. Instead, Nhairin found nighttime hideouts where an enemy could only come at her from one direction. She hunted for water, too, but preferred seeps found in shallow scrapes of rock, rather than waterholes or streams where both darkspawn and Derai patrols might come—including patrols specifically hunting her.
    If possible, Nhairin would not have stopped at all, because as soon as she halted for any length of time the