Read Online Exile by Rowena Cory Daniells - Free Book Online Page B

took the road past the shops and homes, up the northern hillside where the king had made camp.
    When they reached the camp, they stopped in front of Charald’s tent.
    ‘So that’s it,’ Baron Aingeru said. ‘We sit around now until the first new small moon of spring and wait for the Wyrds to leave?’
    ‘Certainly not. Did you see the way they looked down their noses at us? Arrogant Wyrds,’ Charald snapped. ‘They need to know we’re serious. This could be a ploy.’ Charald gestured to the five southern barons. ‘Eskarnor, Hanix, Aingeru, Odei and Fennek, take a war party, choose a Wyrd property near your estate and raze it. Bring back the silverheads’ braids. When we add them to your banners, the Wyrds won’t be so high and mighty.’
    They all moved into Charald’s tent to discuss which estates to attack. Sorne was surprised to hear Nitzane make recommendations. How could the baron talk of murdering Wyrds, yet treat him as a friend? Did Nitzane put him in a different category from other half-bloods?
    Perhaps this was how Zabier could separate his love for Valendia from the act of sacrificing Wyrds.
    By midday the following day, the barons had ridden off to attack the chosen estates. Imoshen and her people were in for a shock.

 
     
    Chapter Six
     
     
    E VERY DAY, I MOSHEN went to the rooftop garden to practice her exercises, striving to train her body and bring her mind, body and gift into alignment. She used to find the exercise patterns soothing, but today she looked out across the lake to a besieging army. Snow blanketed the hillside. She hoped they were freezing their balls off in those tents.
    Twenty days under siege and life went on. In a way, it seemed her people had always lived under siege. They were wary of the Mieren, and they were wary of each other. When she’d come to the city at the age of seventeen, the divide between the T’En men and women had struck her as an undeclared civil war.
    At least King Charald’s attack had forced her people to put aside old grievances and unite against a common enemy, to some extent.
    ‘No matter how hard you stare at them, they will not disappear,’ her choice-son said.
    ‘Iraayel.’ She smiled, looking up. Just before the Mieren attack he’d turned sixteen. He was half a head taller than her and would not finish growing until he was around twenty-five. ‘Your wound has healed well.’
    ‘It was nothing. You know what I hate? The silences.’
    ‘I don’t understand.’
    ‘The Mieren attack reminded me of the day Lyronyxe was murdered in front of Sardeon and I. That made me realise I haven’t seen Sar in years. We used to be best friends, the three of us. So I went to All-mother Reoden’s palace and asked to see him, but they turned me away. Why?’
    Imoshen hesitated.
    ‘When I thought back,’ Iraayel continued, ‘I realised it was like a door had closed in my mind that day and now it has re-opened. You never told me why the brotherhood warriors killed Lyronyxe.’
    ‘You were only twelve. You poured yourself into your gift studies and began weapons training alongside the older lads. I waited, but you didn’t ask.’
    ‘I’m asking now.’
    Imoshen could sense his gift rising and had to fight the instinct to take a step back.
    Iraayel gestured to the brotherhood palaces. ‘The all-fathers hate you because you killed one of their own. Yet now you’re their causare.’
    ‘Only because they divided their votes.’
    ‘Lyronyxe was thirteen. What did she do to deserve their hatred? Why did All-father Kyredeon send his warriors to kill her?’
    ‘He said he knew nothing about it and her death was an accident.’
    ‘But you don’t believe him.’
    She didn’t deny it. As Imoshen recalled Lyronyxe, the bright child she’d watched grow up, her throat tightened. ‘She was a sacrare, born of two T’En parents. Reoden’s gift is healing. We never knew who Lyronyxe’s father was. Whatever his gift, it expressed itself in Lyronyxe this