Solace Shattered Read Free

lied to the king, her head would be on a stake, a feast for the carrion birds.
    The princess glided into her seat and clutched the tablet to her chest. “What a lovely lesson this has been.”
    “Lovely.” Arvana touched her hand to her chest as the captain strode down the dais. She couldn’t see his face, but there was a hitch, nearly imperceptible, in his step.
    “Isn’t he the most handsome man you’ve ever seen?” The princess sighed.
    Hardly knowing if she answered aloud or only in her head, Arvana replied, “Yes.”

FOUNDLINGS
    Lake Sandela Hant, Gheria
    T he dragline went taut in Lieutenant Juvenot’s hands. “I snagged something.”
    As he gripped the rope tighter, a similar tightness gripped his chest. What if it was the sword that killed Seraph? He prayed he’d be the one to find the blade that at once destroyed his hope and might now be his only chance for redemption.
    His rower, and those of the six other boats making a parallel sweep of Lake Sandela, stilled their oars. As the boat slowed, the layer of yellow, frothy scum reformed in its wake.
    The only sound was the splash of the oars of the Fortress Guard’s boat that followed them, watching their every move. The guard boat glided in closer.
    Juvenot begged the Eternal Master that the magnet at the end of his line had snagged the sword instead of a piece of debris from the hant. He’d rather bear the curse of the ancients than that of the sovereign. Tending the creature, he and his regiment-mates had lived within the shadow of an ancient ruin for half a year and no unusual sickness or bad luck had plagued them—unless you counted the creature’s death as bad luck. The sovereign wouldn’t see it that way, though. It was the regiment’s failure of duty that had allowed a band of Sarapostan trappers to kill Seraph, their charge. Though Juvenot doubted it was any mere trapper who killed Seraph. Only a blessed sword could kill a draeden, or at least that’s what history said, and there was only one blessed sword. The dead man who floated to the top of the lake had to be Prince Lerouge or one of his emissaries. That’s why the sovereign had sent his adopted son to make sure the sword was retrieved from the lake. That’s why a boat of Forbidden Fortress guards watched their every move. That was why a special leniency was promised to the men in the boat who found the sword.
    Hand over hand, Juvenot drew in the rope. His gloves grew foul with the scum the rope collected. A long gray shape appeared under the surface.
    A sword.
    Easy does it , he thought. Bring it up smooth so it doesn’t drop back to the bottom of the lake.
    The heavy magnet broke the surface. At the midpoint of the blade, the sword was stuck to it.
    Just a bit more.
    He grasped the sword’s hilt and as if it was a newborn babe, most carefully brought it into the boat.
    The rower, leaning far forward on his seat for a better look, asked, “Is it the one?”
    It took all of Juvenot’s strength to pull the heavy, strong magnet from the blade. He wiped the mud and scum from it with his faded blue jacket sleeve. “It’s engraved, but not in Gherian.”
    “Bring it to the shore,” shouted the nearest Fortress Guard from the boat that had been watching.
    As they reached the shore, General Aleniusson strode into the shade of the overturned pot that had held Seraph on his journey to the lake. Someone must have summoned him.
    “Don’t go to the dock. Take me straight to the general,” Juvenot said, unwilling to give up the sword to anyone except Aleniusson. At the dock, someone would want to take it from him while he disembarked.
    The bottom of the boat scraped to a stop in the shore’s soft mud. He stepped into the shallows, not minding ruining his boots. What were boots when the sovereign’s son waited? “I have found it for you, my glorious General Aleniusson,” he cried as he walked as fast as dignity would allow toward the overturned pot.
    “Show me,” Aleniusson