Heart of the Flame Read Free Page A

keep was overtaken by the raiders. Rand must have vaulted from his sleep in an instant to meet the intruders. The sooty remains of his boots stood near the fireplace, but his sword and dagger were both gone from their sheaths, which lay atop the charred bed as though tossed there in haste and forgotten. Elspeth likely had only a few moments to dress herself and fetch little Tod before the place was overcome with smoke and blood and death.
    How terrified they all must have been.
    God willing, they hadn't suffered long.
    Kenrick suddenly felt much an intruder himself, standing in the room where his friends would have been--indeed, should have been this very moment--sleeping peacefully in each others' arms.
    The scent of old smoke was cloying, heavy in the room. He turned back toward the shuttered window and pulled the latch to permit a cleansing draft. The night breeze sailed in, crisp and cool.
    Kenrick leaned into the wind, clearing his head as he breathed of the brisk, sea-tossed air. The urge to hurl his rage into the quiet darkness was too strong, even for his own rigid sense of control. Grief and anger tore from his throat like a lash.
    He roared a violent curse, the bitter sound ringing in his ears as he sent his cry of fury careening into the night.
     
    * * *
     
    Down near the edge of the woods, a pair of green eyes, dimmed by fatigue and heavy with an unwilling sleep, snapped open. The pained roar that lanced the darkness jolted her awake where she had collapsed some time before.
    How long had she been asleep?
    Easily hours, for it was blackest evening now, and deathly still, save for the anguished howl that yet reverberated in the canopy of trees above her head.
    Twigs and conifer needles jabbed her cheek where it rested on the ground. The tang of loamy earth mingled with the heavy odor of pungent herbs clinging to her skin and clothing. The rank smell offended her nostrils, but it was all she could do to lift her head a fraction off the cold, damp ground and peer around blearily at her surroundings.
    She had collapsed just within the cover of the copse--yes, she remembered that now.
    She had been running. Her feet had been too heavy to move any farther, all of her strength, feeble as it was, spent. The details were scattered in her mind; imprecise, elusive.
    She had been fleeing from someone. The knight's face was but a flash of recollection: golden-haired, his features were bold, his blue eyes haunted, suspicious. Those piercing eyes had taken hold of her like a physical grasp. Her hiding place had been found out, she nearly captured at the keep that stood abandoned across the way.
    Not abandoned...decimated , whispered a memory that was struggling to surface. With the thought came more images of violence.
    Smoke and blood.
    Screams.
    A child wailing in his mother's arms.
    With a groan, she squeezed her eyes closed and pushed the visions away. There was little sense in them anyway, naught but a jumble of confusion lurking in a far corner of her mind. Consciousness itself had become a slippery thing. Days slid into night, and night into day; she could scarcely discern either anymore. It was getting harder and harder for her to hold onto wakefulness, nearly impossible to maintain focus even when her eyes were open.
    Pain.
    That was all she knew for certain. She was in constant pain now, a spreading fire that ate at her body as it slowly sapped her of her will and her senses.
    There was a chill in the air where she lay, yet her body burned as though afire. Heat seared her from within, but no sweat rose to cool her brow. And she was so very thirsty. Her mouth felt as parched as sand, her tongue thick with need of water.
    Blinking away the lulling pull of another slide into darkness, she forced her arms to lift her from the ground. Her limbs quaked, shuddering weakly as she hoisted her slight weight and dragged herself to a sitting position on the ground. The effort left her breathless, her temples pounding with the