Read Online Sons of the Oak by David Farland - Free Book Online

suspect that I have only a few weeks left, at best. And it is my greatest wish to spend that time in the company of my sons.”
    As she spoke, Iome felt a thrill. She had never considered abdicating her throne. It was a burden that she had carried all of her life. Now that the choice was made, she found herself eager to be rid of it, to relinquish it to Duke Paldane. No more meetings with the chancellors. No more court intrigues. No more bearing the weight of the world upon her back.
    â€œI see,” Borenson said softly. “I will miss you, milady.”
    Iome gave him a hard little smile. “I’m not dead yet.”
    Borenson did something that she would never have expected: he wrapped his huge arms around her and hugged her tightly. “No,” he said. “Far from it.”
    She escorted him to the door, let Sir Borenson out. Outside, her Days stood beside the door, waiting as patiently as a chair.
    Iome smiled at the woman, feeling a strange sense of loss to be losing this piece of furniture. “Your services will no longer be required,” Iome said. “I hereby abdicate my throne in favor of Duke Paldane.”
    The rules were clear on this. Once Iome abdicated and named her successor, the Days was to leave.
    The young woman nodded, seemed to think for a moment as she listened to the counsel of distant voices. “Will Fallion be needing my services?”
    Iome smiled patiently. The Days performed no “services.” They merely watched their lords, studied them. Perhaps at times there were lords whose endowments of glamour and Voice could sway a Days, but Iome had not known of one. Iome had had a Days haunting her for as long as she could
remember. She would be glad to be rid of the woman, finally. “No, he won’t be needing you.”
    The Days took this in. She had to know that Iome was taking her sons into hiding. An ancient law forbade a Days from following a lord into exile, for to do so would be to alert the very people that the lord was forced to hide from.
    â€œThen I shall hurry on my way,” the Days said. Iome wondered at the use of the word hurry. Was it a subtle warning? The Days turned toward the tower door, looked over her shoulder, and said, “It has been a pleasure knowing you, milady. Your life has been richly lived, and the chronicles will bear witness to your kindness and courage. I wish you well on the roads ahead. May the Glories guard your way and the Bright Ones watch your back.”

4
    THE STRONG SEED
    No man is as strong as a mother’s love for her child.
    Â 
    â€”Iome Orden
    Â 
    Fallion worked breathlessly to finish packing in his bedchamber while Jaz did the same. It wasn’t that Fallion had much to pack; it was that he felt excited. He only recalled ever having one real adventure in his life: when he was four, his mother had taken the boys to Heredon. He remembered almost nothing of the trip, but recalled how one morning they had ridden along a lake whose waters were so calm and clear that you could see the fat brook trout swimming far out from shore. The lake seemed to be brimful of mist, and with the way that it escaped in whorls and eddies, Fallion almost imagined that the lake was exhaling. The vapors stole up along the shore and had hung in the air among some stately beech and oaks, their tender leaves a new-budded green.
    Their expert driver kept the carriage going slowly and steadily so that Fallion and Jaz could sleep. As the horses plodded silently on a road made quiet by recent rains, Fallion suddenly found himself gaping out the window through the morning mist at a huge boar—a legendary “great boar” of the Dunwood. The creature was enormous; the hump on its shoulders rose almost level with the top of the carriage, and the long dark hair at its chest swept to the ground. It grunted and plowed the fields with its enormous tusks, eating worms and soil and last season’s acorns.
    The driver