Read Online The Coming Storm by Valerie Douglas - Free Book Online Page A

me?”
    Her heart was still pounding, her feelings wounded but of course she’d said, “No need, I shouldn’t have startled you. I should apologize, not you.”
    Then he’d kissed her on the forehead absently and she’d gone away but the worry stayed with her. That and an odd uneasiness.
    Little things. Nothings. Was it simply her imagination, a childish longing to remain a child still in her father’s eyes or was it really getting worse? She wasn’t a child, she was a woman grown, not that much shy of her majority. Was her father truly getting more irritable, less patient of late? It seemed more and more so. So many little things. She pushed her odd presentiments away.
    Smiling again at Dorovan, she shook her head. “No, nothing to speak of, which makes me more at fault for not being aware. My teacher should chastise me severely for my inattentiveness. That’s no way for a warrior to behave.”
    “Perhaps but your teacher isn’t so harsh as all that and it seems the lesson has been learned nevertheless. I doubt you will be so careless next time.”
    “I won’t,” she assured him.
    She knew how lucky she was to have an Elf to instruct her. No one she knew had ever heard of such a thing. It was their secret, hers, Dorovan’s and her grandmother’s. Not even her father and mother knew. Partly because his visits to her grandmother here were a secret and must remain so – there were those among both their peoples who wouldn’t approve. As well, they wouldn’t endorse his teaching her how to use a sword and bow. Or speaking Elven, for that matter.
    “So,” Dorovan said, “let’s see what you remember.”
    She drew her sword and stood at guard but he looked, sighed and shook his head.
    “That won’t do,” he said.
    Surprised, she stared. Her stance was correct, her sword held properly. She knew it, could feel it, her center of balance was correctly set.
    Dorovan took a few steps back. Her distraction at this time served him well, he’d been able to hide this close at hand. He pulled out the package from where he’d hidden it and held it out to her.
    For a moment Ailith looked at him shyly. She didn’t know what to make of it. What was this? Her heart was pounding.
    A gift?
    “Go on, Ailith, it’s yours.” Dorovan spoke gently and with pleasure.
    Only for his own son, born of his one alliance, had he done such a thing, not for any other student of his. It would have been allowable within Elven society to have done so and he’d had many excellent students. This one, though, was special. She stood as his best student for certain, with more to overcome than they – her height and her race. She’d worked harder than many. That she had a gift, an immense talent for it, was certain but some came to it as easily and took it for granted. She hadn’t. There was that.
     There was also his fondness for her, for her light heart and merry ways, for her determination and will.
    Some among his own people would be very displeased at what he’d done. He didn’t care, it had nearly been an obsession to make these for her. As it was with such magic.
    “Mine?” Ailith said, carefully, and reached out for it.
    It was a long package, very long, oddly shaped and not small. She had to kneel on one knee and tuck part of it in the crook of her arm to hold it. It was heavy but not unbearably so. Her fingers seemed oddly disjointed, fumbling as she pulled the string and picked the resulting knot apart. The package felt oddly familiar and there was this strange hum that was half heard and half felt. Then the wrappings fell away and she could only stare in amazement at what she found there.
    Never had she seen anything so beautiful.
    The scabbard of the longsword was in tooled black leather, Elvish knot-work and spirals like vines curling around each other. It was netted within a fine working of thin wire wrapped with silver, real silver, with tiny blue star-stones at every other joining along the front. Her breath caught