The Shattered Land: The Dreaming Dark - Book 2 Read Free Page A

battlefield, the sight of friends’ corpses scattered across the battlefield, the fear that he might make the wrong decision and lead the rest of his soldiers to their deaths. These visions seized his mind with a terrible strength, blotting out all other thoughts. When he awoke, all recent memories—everything since the war—were pushed away by the horrors of Keldan Ridge. If it continued to get worse, would he lose his memory for good, or might he be trapped in his memories of the past, forced to relive the battle over and over again?
    At the same time, he couldn’t deny his curiosity. None of them could remember that night. Until four days ago, Daine had completely forgotten the discovery of the warforged base. As frightening as the visions were, there was a part of him that yearned to know more—to finally unlock the secrets of that night, the last night before the Mourning destroyed his homeland.
    Eventually the trio emerged onto the streets of High Walls. Once this district had served as a prison camp, housingforeigners and others Breland considered a threat to the security of Sharn. Now that the Treaty of Thronehold had brought an end to the Last War, relations between the people of the Five Nations were a little less strained, but while a Sharn guard might treat a Cyran refugee or Karrn merchant with less suspicion than he would have a year ago, the psychological wounds of a century of war wouldn’t vanish overnight, and prejudice still ran deep. High Walls was no longer a prison, but it remained a ghetto. The majority of the inhabitants were refugees from Cyre, people who had lost almost everything in the Mourning. Some were struggling to make a new life in the City of Towers, and these tradesfolk and laborers provided the services that kept the district on its feet. Many refugees were simply looking for a place to waste away, pining for their fallen nation. The other inhabitants were a motley assortment, bound together by misery: beggars, cripples, orphans, and others unwanted in the more prosperous regions of the city. The walls were cracked, cobblestones were missing from the streets, and it rained as often as not. It was depressing, and it could be dangerous, but it was home.
    Daine and his companions lived in an old inn. When they’d taken possession, the building had been a shambles; it had served as a home for generations of squatters, and Daine had seen battlefields with less damage. Lei had surprised them all. It was a trivial matter for her cleansing magics to dispel the layers of dirt and excrement covering the walls and floors. Lei was also a fair carpenter, a skill left over from her early training in the schools of the House of Making. Over the last few months she had produced new furniture and acquired a few squares of painted cloth to decorate the common room. Lei had set up a workshop in the wine cellar, and Pierce and Daine even had enough space for combat drills, if they pushed aside the tables. It wasn’t a palace by any means, but there was more than enough space for the three of them, and on a rainy night it was comforting to sit by the large hearth.
    Tonight Daine went straight up to his room. He shut the heavy door and laid the wooden bar across it then quickly stripped off his armor. While he’d crushed the life from the insects, the remnants of centipedes and beetles were scatteredthroughout his clothing and mashed against his skin, and a hot bath and fresh clothes were definitely called for. As he stripped off his belt and breeches, he paused, looking at his belt pouch. A memory returned—Jode’s voice, calling out and waking him from his stupor. Daine reached into the pouch and pulled out a small bundle of black leather. Carefully, he untied the cord and unwrapped the package, revealing a tiny crystal bottle filled with a luminous blue liquid. He slowly ran a finger across the lead seal, tracing the complex dragonmark embedded on the top.
    “Jode?” he whispered.
    “There are