Read Online Forged In Flame (In Her Name: The First Empress, Book 2) by Michael R. Hicks - Free Book Online

not by treating with a monster. I wanted our powers to be used to break us from the endless rise and fall of civilization, yes, but to take our people higher, to where they deserve to be.” He looked at Keel-Tath. “But if the priesthoods should choose to take the counsel of the Dark Queen, all may be lost.”
    As Keel-Tath sat there, listening, the fire in her blood again began to burn. But this was not the uncontrolled flame that raged through her earlier when her body went through its change. This was a cold fury that wrapped itself around her heart, a fury that she held close and quiet, that she did not wish the others of her bloodline, Ayan-Dar most of all, to sense. She did not know if she could hide it, but she would try. The Dark Queen, of course, was her enemy, and had been since the day she was born. But now the priesthoods, too, seemed to be aligning against her. She felt as if she was falling into the sea beyond the walls of the city, into the maws of the terrible creatures that lurked beneath the waves.
    “Then what hope have I?” Her words fell into the silence, and the elders all turned to look at her. “What was the point of my even being born, or the prophecy by a long-dead oracle, if the most powerful of our kind, the priesthoods, would see me dead?”
    “That is not what was said, child,” Ayan-Dar told her. 
    “But that is what you fear, is it not? If the orders listen to the words of the Dark Queen, if they come to believe that I could change the Way itself, would they not do anything to stop the fulfillment of the prophecy? And how better to do that than to kill me?”
    Ayan-Dar opened his mouth to say something, then slowly closed it.
    “You cannot deny her the truth,” Li’an-Salir said quietly. 
    “I will let no harm come to you,” Ayan-Dar vowed, shaking off the armored gauntlet from his hand. “Before the eyes of all who witness this, I swear. Take off your gauntlets. Draw your dagger.”
    Unsure what the old priest was thinking, Keel-Tath did as he ordered. After removing her gauntlets, she drew her dagger from its scabbard and held it, point toward the ceiling.
    Holding his hand to one side of the blade, he said, “Take my hand, the blade in between us. Then draw it across our palms, that we may share our blood.”
    “Drakash,” Keel-Tath whispered, her eyes wide with surprise. It was an ancient ritual that dated back to the earliest times of the Desh-Ka, a physical and spiritual bond between two warriors of the order. It was never done with a warrior before they had completed their seventh and final Challenge. She did not wish to think of how T’ier-Kunai would react to what her mentor was doing now, but part of her no longer cared.
    Holding out her free hand, she clasped Ayan-Dar’s, then pulled the blade down, twisting it so the edge sliced through the skin and into the flesh beneath. His fingers closed around her hand, pressing their palms together. She felt a tingling in the wound that quickly spread up her arm, to her shoulder, then down into her chest. In but a few moments, the sensation had spread throughout her body as her eyes remained fixed on his. In that flicker of time, she felt as if she truly knew him, all of him, as if she had shared his very soul. 
    “It is done,” he said after what to her seemed like a very long time. He slowly let go her hand, and she stared at the long cut across her palm and the blood that seeped from the wound. “Bind it with a clean cloth and let it heal on its own. You are not a priestess, but you are bound by blood now to the Desh-Ka. They cannot now forsake you.”
    “They may not be able to forsake her,” Li’an-Salir said, “but can they protect her? The Desh-Ka are the most powerful, but could they stand against the might of the other orders and Syr-Nagath’s hordes, should such a terrible day ever come?”
    “We will not have to. The priesthoods will not fight one another. They never have in all the millennia since they