Read Online The Shadowed Throne by K. J. Taylor - Free Book Online Page B

that. Look.”
    Oeka turned her head, looking over the city again. Icy wind blew in her face, entering her nostrils. “I smell smoke. I see . . .”
    â€œYeah. See it?”
    A dull red glow had appeared down among the lights of the city. It pulsated slightly, like a heart, and above it a column of smoke darkened the moon.
    â€œFire!” Oeka exclaimed.
    â€œYeah.” Laela rubbed the griffin’s head with her knuckles. “Pretty, ain’t it?”
    â€œThe city is in danger. You should do something.”
    â€œDon’t need to. Saeddryn says the Night God don’t want me around—why should I care that her precious Temple’s burnin’?”
    â€œThe Temple . . .”
    â€œIt’s made of stone,” Laela said carelessly. “It’ll be saved. Can’t say it won’t be damaged, though. What a shame.”
    â€œYou did this,” said Oeka. “You had the Temple burned.”
    â€œNow why would I go an’ do somethin’ like that?” Laela tucked her hair back. “Seems there’s a woman we brought back from Amoran what doesn’t like the Night God much. Got it into her head that Gryphus is the real god. An’ we all know Gryphus burns what makes him angry. If only the maniac hadn’t got her hands on a barrel of lamp oil an’ the key to the back door. Oh well, too bad.”
    Oeka’s tail twitched. “I see.”
    â€œThey’ll catch her soon enough,” said Laela. “But she won’t stay in prison long enough to talk. I’ll have her executed straight off. Terrible crime, blasphemy. Meantime, if Saeddryn wants my money to fix the Temple, she’d better start singin’ the song I want to hear.”
    Oeka looked down on the red glow. “Truly, you are your father’s chick.”
    â€œI’m gonna be as dangerous to my enemies as he was,” said Laela. “But unlike him, I ain’t lettin’
her
win. He left that to me.”
    S aeddryn had gone to bed early that night, wanting to be well rested by moonrise, when she would have to conduct the nightly ceremonies. Normally, the High Priestess would live in or close to the Temple itself, but she was a griffiner and owned some of the finest living quarters in the Eyrie. Her husband had shared them with her once, but that had been a long time ago. Now he had his own rooms, closer to where he worked. Saeddryn couldn’t sleep at all any more, unless it was alone.
    She curled up under her furs, frowning slightly as she drifted off. On her bedside table, a sprig of drying pine spiced the air. Lately she’d been having more trouble sleeping than usual, and the smell helped to soothe her. It took her mind back to an older time, when she would leave her home in the village and slip away into the mountains to be with her mother.
    Old Arddryn had always greeted her daughter formally—Saeddryn didn’t remember a time when she had smiled to see her. It was the ice, she used to think. All that ice and stone in the mountains. They got into a person’s soul.
    Saeddryn never blamed her mother for that inner hardness, never resented it. War took something away from a person, and years of despair took even more.
    I’ve become her,
she thought sadly in the darkness.
Old, one-eyed an’ bitter in the soul.
    And maybe, like her mother, she would be killed by Arenadd’s betrayal. His weakness.
    Saeddryn fell asleep with that thought, and it seeped into her dreams—tainting them with old fears, old resentments.
    Arenadd. Her cousin. So handsome. So strong. So far away. Everything she had wanted and always been denied.
    He smiled at her, but it was a wolf’s smile—a cruel smile.
All you wanted,
the smile said.
    Saeddryn realised there were people all around, hundreds of them. They were cheering, shouting, throwing themselves forward in joy.
Cheering for me,
she thought,
for me, for