Free Lynn Viehl - [Darkyn 08 - Lords of the Darkyn 01] by Nightborn (mobi)

child.”
    Simone guided her to the little rose garden where Flavia had conducted many of her lessons, and there told her what had happened. “He came for my father. He’s taken the scroll in order to draw him out.” She looked down at the ground. “I offered him my life. He left me to his men.”
    Flavia took hold of her hand. “I spoke with our superiors while you were gone. They will be sending someone to relocate us. They also gave me new instructions for you.”
    Simone glanced at the top floor of the convent. “What do they wish me to do?”
    Flavia’s lips formed a tight, bitter smile. “You are to use the Englishman sent by Tremayne to secure the treasure.”
    “His name is Korvel, and I rescued him,” Simone told her. “He is wounded, and too weak to be of any use to us.”
    “Then you must revive him, child. You are to use his gifts so that you may track the thieves and retrieve the scroll.”
    “So he can take it to his master in England?” Simone shook her head. “They have gone mad.”
    “He will not be taking it anywhere.” The old woman’s voice went flat. “Once you have recovered the scroll, you are to destroy it…and kill the Englishman.”
    “They command me to kill him?” Simone stared at her. “But he has done nothing wrong. He has no more knowledge of this than that courier you clouted.”
    “You know that does not matter,” Flavia said.
    “To them, no. To me?” She got to her feet. “Mother, Korvel killed for me. He saved my life.” When Flavia said nothing, Simone crossed her arms over her churning stomach. “I can’t murder an innocent man. I won’t do it.”
    “You made your oath to the council, child, as we all did,” the old woman reminded her. “You are tresori . Your first obligation is complete obedience to your masters.”
    “Who are sworn to protect the dark Kyn,” Simone countered. “How does killing one of them serve that oath?”
    “Such things are not explained to me,” the old woman admitted, “but I can guess. If the high lord possesses the scroll, he will find out the rest. And he will have the means with which to create a new army to move against the Brethren. If Tremayne learns the council has destroyed the scroll—which his warrior would tell him as soon as he returned to England—then our other purpose will be revealed.”
    For seven hundred years the tresoran council had walked the impossibly narrow line of faithfully serving the Darkyn while ensuring that the immortals did not inflict irreversible harm on the mortal world. Their Darkyn lords depended heavily on the former but had no knowledge of the latter. Every generation of tresori took not only an oath of loyalty to the Kyn, but swore to protect the future of mankind by any means necessary.
    All the fight went out of Simone, who sat down beside the abbess. “So the Englishman must never leave France.”
    “Not alive,” Flavia agreed, and turned her head toward the convent. “His wound and the daylight will have him at his most vulnerable now. The council need never know that he survived the confrontation at the château.” She groped for Simone’s hand. “If you will guide me, I will do it.”
    “No.” The thought of them going upstairs to kill the man while he was helpless made Simone sick. “I do need him. Pájaro is telling his men that he is Helada.”
    Flavia made a disgusted sound. “Why didn’t your father kill him like all the others?”
    “The night before he was to be tested, Pájaro stole Piers’s wallet and car and ran away.” Simone remembered how angry her father had been when he had opened the door to the empty cell. “A month after that the police in Marseilles called. They had found Pájaro drowned. He had been in the water for weeks, but they found Piers’s identification as well as his keys. Everyone knew that Pájaro could not swim; water was the only thing he ever feared. Father told them to burn the body and never spoke of him again.”
    “He