Read Online Hand of the Hunter: Chosen of Nendawen, Book II by Mark Sehestedt - Free Book Online

her when she was small. It called to her and repulsed her at the same time. She imagined that was how a moth must feel at the sight of the candle’s flame.
    “Wh-who’s there?” she called. Hearing the tremor in her voice, Hweilan realized she was shivering again.
    “
Alet, kweshta.”
    Hweilan gasped. Those words she knew from her mother.
Come here, dear one
in the tongue of the Vil Adanrath.
    The singing had stopped, but the voice called again, “
Alet
 …” followed by a long string of words that Hweilan could not understand.
    Hweilan’s skin seemed to tighten around her, and every hair stood on end. There was a tone to the voice now that she didn’t trust. No malevolence or threat, but something—
    Coaxing.
    “
Alet, kweshta. Alet
.”
    A woman emerged from the cave. At first, she was nothing more than a pale something amidst the darkness, then she stepped fully into the light of the cavern.
    She was tall, elf lithe, her skin pale as old bone, her face ageless. Her nose was little more than a slight bump on her face with two slits of nostrils to either side. Her eyes, both browless, had no whites, but seemed to swirl with a half-dozen colors, like a thin sheen of oil over black water. Silver hair hung past her waist, and she dressed in a gown of what Hweilan first thought was black silk. But as the woman moved, threads of it floated in the air around her, finer than pollen on summer breezes.
    “Hweilan, is it?” said the woman. “She who knows her name.” The woman’s voice held no warmth, but neither was it particularly cold. Simply dryly curious.
    “Yes,” said Hweilan, and she found herself taking a step back for every step the woman took toward her until her heel touched the edge of the water. She stopped. “Are you … Kesh Naan?”
    The woman gave a tight smile, revealing no teeth, just a curve of her lips. “And you know my name.”
    Hweilan didn’t understand, so she said, “Gleed sent me.”
    The woman’s smile melted away and she stopped a few paces in front of Hweilan. She watched Hweilan a long time. Hweilan was suddenly very conscious of her nakedness,though she no longer felt cold. On the contrary, the blood suddenly felt very hot under her skin.
    Kesh Naan closed her eyes, bent her head back, and took in a deep breath through her open mouth, almost as if she were tasting the air.
    It would be most dangerous if she smells blood on you
.
    Gleed’s words. Hweilan looked down and saw the blood streaking her side, running down her hip and leg to mix with the mud.
    Kesh Naan lowered her head, and when she opened her eyes, the look in them had changed. She had the gaze of a hungry beast, the leader of the wolf pack who has just caught sight of the straggler in the herd.
    Hweilan swallowed and said, “I—”
    Kesh Naan struck, a lunge so swift that there was nothing Hweilan could have done had she tried. The pale woman seized her. Kicking and clawing and screaming, Hweilan could not break free, could not even loosen the woman’s steel grip. Kesh Naan pulled her in close. A black tongue emerged from between her pale lips, and Hweilan felt the cold flesh slide along the wounds on her shoulder, licking at the blood.
    Hweilan screamed.
    Kesh Naan held her at arm’s length and sighed, like a destitute drunkard enjoying his first taste of a truly fine wine. But then, as Hweilan watched, the look froze on Kesh Naan’s face. Her upper lip curled into a snarl, and Kesh Naan threw Hweilan away—so hard that she flew across the cavern, slammed into one of the stone columns, then hit the ground, dirt and grit raining down upon her.
    She heard Kesh Naan spitting. “Blood burns and bites—gah!”
    Almost paralyzed with fear and confusion, Hweilan managed to look up. Kesh Naan was staring at her—
studying
her—through eyes narrow as the slash of a razor. Very slowly, she wiped her lips with the back of one hand.
    “What are you?” Kesh Naan said.
    “I … I—”
    “What
are
you?”