Honor Bound Read Free Page A

sense of
crystal shards slicing deep into mind and memory.
    The pain faded quickly, leaving only
the burning agony in her sword arm. The memory of battle remained,
vivid as a fairy's illusion. It felt familiar, like opening a book
and reading a well-known tale.
    She pulled up the skirts of the gown
Rhendish had given her and propped one foot against the wall so she
could study her knee. Yes, there were faint silver lines round the
knee, and when she twisted her leg she found deeper scars in the
crease behind.
    More metal, more
gears .
    Less elf.
    She took a moment to absorb this. In
the depths of her heart, despair thundered like winter surf. She
acknowledged it, but she did not let the waves overwhelm
her.
    Instead, she unwrapped the bandage
on her sword arm and regarded the neat row of new stitches where
Rhendish had removed a few broken gears. Tomorrow, he would replace
one of the metal rods with crystal grown from her own shattered
bones. The next day, he would do more. And the next. She would bear
it for as long as the task required.
    And when it was done, she owed
Rhendish the strength of her sword arm for a year and a day. That
was the pledge she'd made, the price of the Thorn's
safety.
    "It is decided," she said, turning
her mind to other things.
    She walked over to her chamber
window and gazed out over Rhendish's courtyard as she pondered the
meaning of this vision.
    Though she welcomed the return of
memory, even one so painful as this, she could not understand why
this memory had come to her through Nimbolk's eyes.
    The connection among elfin warriors
ran along deep and complex paths, but it seldom included a sharing
of memories, and it did not transcend death.
    That could only mean Nimbolk was
alive. And unless the warrior had become a priest or mystic in the
last decade—a notion too incongruous for her to entertain for even
a moment—a connection strong enough for shared memory meant that no
great distance or open seas separated them.
    Nimbolk had come to the islands of
Sevrin. Knowing Nimbolk, she had no doubt that he'd come for the
Thorn, and she knew all too well how he'd deal with anyone who
stood between him and his duty.
    Honor reached under her mattress and
drew out several battered items of clothing. The shadow-colored
garments she'd worn during the battle in Muldonny's fortress had
not been improved by her long fall into the sea, but where she was
going, they'd be less conspicuous than Rhendish's silk and
gems.
    She had to warn Fox, whether or not
he wanted to listen to her.

Chapter 3: Kronhus
     
     
    Sailing from Heartstone to Kronhus
required a boat, a brisk wind, and a long night. Thanks to Vishni,
acquiring a boat presented no problem. The little fishing vessel
otherwise would have spent a day or two bobbing alongside its
mooring post while its owners recovered from her latest prank. And
in late summer, winds from the south blew warm and strong. A
current ran along the western sea, speeding their course as they
skimmed past one island after another.
    Even so, it seemed to Fox Winterborn
that no boat had ever moved so slowly, and no night had ever lasted
so long. Knowing that this would be the shortest and easiest part
of the journey did little to set his mind at ease.
    When morning came, he would have to
find smugglers willing to take him and his three companions out to
sea, to the floating markets where business was done on
mainlanders' ships, far from the watching eyes of Sevrin's ruling
adepts. To complicate matters, one of Fox's companions was a fairy,
one was a dwarf, and the third was a man from a distant land and
another time.
    Fox was not certain which of the
three would present the biggest problem. Probably not Delgar. The
young dwarf stood taller than most of his kind, near the midpoint
of five feet and six, and although his natural coloring was an
unrelieved shade of gray, he could change the hue of his skin and
hair at will. His frame carried more muscle than most men could
boast, but