Sorrow's Peak (Serpent of Time Book 2) Read Free

faster than he could reach out his hand to try and hold it all in place.
    “Are you deliberately trying to provoke me, Aelfric? Trying to see just how far I’m willing to go, because I can assure you that you will not like the outcome if that is the case. My sorceress…”
    “No,” the king’s eyes widened as he glanced over Trystay’s shoulders at the lithe Ninvarii woman standing near the door. He shook his head, stammering, “Of c-course not. I… I want my daughter found,” he insisted. “I want her brought back and in my care where she belongs, and I want the head of the slave who took her.”
    “Then call your priests and say goodbye to your queen before the sun rises on the morrow. At first light, we march men west into the Edgelands to find and retrieve that treacherous wretch you tried to force upon me. In the meanwhile, I will dispatch a search party to find your daughter before she disappears entirely.”
    After a long silence, during which Trystay couldn’t tell if the man was thinking or simply staring down at his hands in his lap in hopes that some solution would magically manifest itself, Aelfric finally offered a meek nod. “Fine.”
    “As you are drawing up orders for your men, you will also draw a clear decree summarizing Lorelei’s crimes. She is to be returned to Rivenn, unharmed, so she can face charges of treason against her king.”
    “Yes,” Aelfric agreed. “Of course.”
    “Are we in agreement on all matters presented?”
    “Yes,” the king sighed, still refusing to lift his defeated head. “We have an agreement.”
    “Excellent.” Trystay clapped his hands together in a triumphant gesture, the dry sound ringing through the quiet room. “I will dispatch the search party at once and bring your daughter back to you, Your Majesty, and when she is returned you will make formal announcement that we are to be wed.”
    “As you wish.”
    There was a lightness to Trystay’s step as he spun around and marched from the room, his guard and his stoic, Ninvarii sorceress falling in behind him and closing King Aelfric inside like a prisoner. They did not need to bar the door, his grief alone was enough to prohibit him from doing something foolish, and Trystay knew it.
    Power.
    It was a delicious thing, he thought, and for the first time in his life he knew his father would be proud of him for taking that which he wanted by manipulation, rather than force.
    Soon he would hold enough power to rival his own father, not that lording over his father was part of his plan, but who knew, perhaps one day that was exactly what he’d do. The only way to prove oneself a man was to be the last one standing, even if the corpse he towered over was the corpse of his father.
    In the meanwhile, it pleased him a great deal to imagine his father would praise his ingenuity and effort as well, saving a situation gone horribly wrong before it spun out of his hands entirely. He bettered the terms of their original agreement in ways they never imagined when he sent his son forth to Leithe.
    Deallora followed him into his chambers, closing the doors behind her to provide them privacy from his men on the other side.
    “Plotting vengeance against the U’lfer is not wise, Highness. My goddess…”
    “Your goddess has done nothing for me, Dea.”
    “She does all for you, Highness. She has shown me your path to greatness, and if you go after the U’lfer, if you pursue Lorelei…”
    “You’re still jealous of her.” Trystay narrowed suspicious and taunting gaze over his sorceress, his lover, searching for the barest hint of animosity in her features.
    “I am not jealous of her,” she insisted, though he sensed annoyance in her tone at the suggestion. “What is she to me? A threat? I already have you, Highness.”
    Trystay surged forward so quickly the wrapping of his fingers around her throat caught the sorceress off-guard, but when he squeezed she made every effort not to show pain or surprise.
    “You