Sword of Dreams (The Reforged Trilogy) Read Free Page B

little to combat the Nihilists when they came for us!"
    "Easy, Maeve," Xia said. "He was terrified of Gavriel. It was very difficult and very brave of him to do anything at all."
    "Great. Thanks, Xia," Duaal mumbled, blushing.
    "She's just trying to help, Shimmer," said Gripper, always eager to leap to the Ixthian's defense.
    "She doesn't know how to help anyone but herself!"
    Duaal thought that Gripper was talking about Maeve. Xia opened her mouth to correct him, but Tiberius interrupted them all.
    "Enough!" His voice thundered uncomfortably in the closed confines of the elevator. "Maeve's money and what you all did or didn't do on Stray doesn't matter anymore! Since we flew out of here with Kessa and ducked the Axis police, we're criminals on this planet. Damnably petty ones, but still criminals."
    "I'd just like to point out that Maeve brought Kessa on board, too," said Duaal.
    "Hood that, Duaal! What's done is done."
    "He's right. There's no money and it's been hard to find work. Times have been a little rough and lean." This was from Xia, who looked at Tiberius with arched antennae. "But we've got a solid lead now. Yes, it's academic work, but Xen says the money is good and we really can't afford to be picky."
    Gripper stood behind her, fidgeting uncomfortably as the others argued. He gave his captain a crooked smile. "Besides, you get to go home, Claws. That's great, right?"
    Tiberius' only response was a terse grunt. The rest of the long ride down into Axis' lower levels was spent in silence, leaving Maeve little else to do but think. Seven months had passed since Stray, since stealing the infant Baliend back from Gavriel and his Nihilists. Since facing Princess Titania – No, she is Xartasia now. The dreamer of death. – under the desert graveyard.
    She forgave me for the death of our people. My cousin would be queen of the White Kingdom, if she would but take up the crown. And Xartasia has forgiven me.
    Maeve looked down at her hands, at the wrists sticking out from her more or less clean sleeves. The skin was still scarred by battle and chem abuse, but even those marks were beginning to fade.
    Am I absolved? Do the gods forgive me for the millions I delivered into death?
    Seven months since Logan Coldhand. The bounty on Maeve was paid – into the hands of the Gharib police, as Duaal complained – and so the hunter had left. The chase was over. The loss still weighed strangely heavy on Maeve.
    But she was tired of being self-absorbed and pathetic, tired of everyone around her paying the price for her indulgence. Maeve clasped her hands in front of her and turned her attention to her companions instead. Her gaze wandered inevitably to the shortened length of Gripper's long, mottled left ear. The Arboran noticed her looking and rubbed the shiny scar self-consciously.
    The events of the last year seemed to have done nothing to change the unflappable Xia. Sometimes it seemed that her sweet and motherly – if slightly aloof – nature was the only thing keeping the Blue Phoenix crew from falling apart entirely.
    Beside her, Duaal leaned against the curved wall of the lift, eyeing Maeve balefully through braided locks of bleached hair. Though the surly teenager's clothes remained needlessly expensive and elaborate, he no longer wore the charms and magical symbols – moons and stars and angular knots – that he once did. Back on Stray, Maeve had told him that such things were the tools of only the youngest, least experienced spell-singers and the news had deeply shamed the proud Duaal.
    Only a child is insulted to be called a child, Maeve thought. She pinched her arm angrily. By the standards of her own people, she was still young, too. But still old enough to destroy the White Kingdom…
    Tiberius just looked tired. Maeve's stomach twisted into a tight, guilty ball again. Tiberius scratched his cheek and sighed, lost in his own thoughts. The last of his pewter hair had gone entirely white and he had not shaved in