Read Online The Shadow Within by Karen Hancock - Free Book Online Page A

having eaten. Nor was the increasing weakness and throbbing pain in his left arm the result of physical exertion or injury. All were the unmistakable signs of spore sickness.
    At first he couldn’t think how he’d been exposed, until he remembered he’d been swimming in the kraggin’s blood. Diluted by seawater, the spore’s initial effects would be unnoticeable, increasing gradually over time as they multiplied within him. Cursed—or blessed?—with unusual sensitivity to the stuff, he’d be dog-sick by the end of the day unless he initiated a purge first. But a purge would not only cocoon his body in an aura of Terstan Light— hardly a spectacle he wanted just anyone to see right now—it would also require several hours to complete. He’d have to find a place where he’d be sure no one would stumble onto him. And with no one but Lieutenant Channon available to guard him, he wished yet again that he hadn’t sent Trap away. Well, no help for that now. At least in the course of the night’s events, Channon had shown himself an honorable man, a fellow Terstan and already devoted to Abramm’s cause.
    Passing through the gate without incident, they threaded their way through the congested alleys between the palace service buildings and came at last to the backside of the west wing, its three stories of windows gleaming in the morning light. A trio of blue-jacketed armsmen stood at the small side door through which Abramm had chosen to enter. Dismounting stiffly, he had to lean against the horse and wait for the dizziness to pass before handing off the reins and stepping forward to greet a worried-looking Channon and a tall elderly man he recognized as his own father’s Grand Chamberlain, Lord Robert Haldon.
    Haldon had changed little in the fourteen years since Abramm had last seen him. Although he was not the giant perceived by a twelve-year-old, he was still big—as tall and broad of shoulder as Abramm. His hands were huge, and his craggy face, with its beak of a nose and jutting chin, was more seamed than ever. Clad in a dark gray doublet with puffy sleeves and those horrible ballooning breeches, he wore his wiry white hair long now and tied at the nape with a black ribbon. Abramm recalled him as a quiet, competent man, so solemn he often seemed stern, especially to the king’s sons. Yet for all his imposing bulk he had been kind and respectful of Abramm when others had not.
    Now he wore a tense, suspicious look that faded into flatness as Abramm stopped in front of him. “Prince Abramm!” he whispered thickly. “It really is you!”
    “Hello, Haldon,” Abramm said with a wry smile. “Good to see you again.”
    Haldon bowed low. “Welcome home, Your Highness.”
    The guards at the door had stiffened when Haldon greeted Abramm, and Abramm felt their attention fix upon him, though nothing in their mien changed outwardly.
    “We have had to put you in the Ivory Apartments,” Haldon said. “With the Council of the Realm set to meet tomorrow, the peers have been arriving all week, and I’m afraid we’re overcrowded. If you are willing to wait, it would not take long to vacate something more appropriate.”
    “The Ivory Apartments will be fine.”
    Haldon looked relieved. “Very good, sir. If you’ll come with me?”
    As they trod the empty, gleaming corridors, Abramm could only thank Eidon he’d had Channon arrange for his quartering discreetly. Wishing to choose his own time and place for meeting Gillard and the court, he had counted it better not be seen at all than as a weary, bedraggled waif, stinking of kraggin. It never dawned on him he’d have to worry about spore sickness, too. Which was why, when they reached the Ivory Apartments on the second floor of this west wing, he was profoundly displeased to find three noblemen awaiting him.
    One was a complete fop, decked out in salmon-colored doublet and breeches trimmed with copious amounts of lace. A wig of golden curls cascaded to the middle of