Free Beyond The Shadows by Brent Weeks Page A

princess trapped in a tall tower.
     You’re here to rescue me. How droll. You can go tell Garoth I got teary-eyed and breathless—and then you can go to hell!”
    Dorian rubbed his forehead. If only the snippets he remembered of his visions had given him good ways to deal with Jeni’s—Jenine’s—anger.
    “All I need to know, Your Highness, is if you want to leave and risk death or if you’d rather stay in your comfortable tower
     until my father—who’s old enough to be your grandfather—comes to take your dignity, your maidenhead, and your sanity. You’re
     a little old for my father’s preferences, but since you’re a princess, I’m sure he’d give you a chance. If you produce a Talented
     son, you’ll be allowed to live. You will watch him grow up only from a distance, so that your ‘womanly weakness’ doesn’t cripple
     him. When he’s thirteen years old, the two of you will be reunited and allowed to spend the next two months together. Then
     my father will surprise both of you by visiting personally and asking what you’ve taught his seed in the time he’s given you.
     It doesn’t matter. What matters is it will be the first time your son will have had a god’s undivided attention. At the end
     of the interview, your son will be asked to kill you. It’s a test few fail.”
    Her big eyes had gotten huge. “You didn’t fail it, did you?”
    “The north is a brutal mistress, Your Highness. No one leaves her without scars,” Dorian said. “I’ve got a plan, but it won’t
     be ready for five days, and everything depends on getting through the pass to Cenaria before the snow flies and the passes
     close. All I need to know is, if I risk my life to come again, will you leave with me?”
    He could count the heartbeats while she thought. She surveyed her prison with clenched teeth. She pulled her high collar aside
     and Dorian saw a scar so wide he knew she must have been healed with magic almost immediately. A cut throat like that would
     have left her dead in a minute or two. “Back home in Cenaria, I was secretly in love. Logan was a good man, a true friend
     to my brother, intelligent, and half the women in the city were after him because he was so handsome—the other half were after
     him because he was heir to a duchy. Logan Gyre would have been a good match for me and for our families, but there was bad
     blood between our fathers, so I never dared hope my dream might come true. Then an assassin murdered my brother, and my father
     was left without an heir. He thought that if he made Logan his heir, it would forestall attempts on his own life. So Logan
     and I married. Two hours later, Khalidorans murdered my entire family to eliminate the heirs to the throne. But a wytch named
     Neph Dada thought I was too pretty to throw away, so he cut my throat in front of my husband and Healed me afterward. Logan
     they killed later, after subjecting him to gods know what tortures. These people have taken everything I love.” She turned,
     and her eyes were molten steel. “I’ll be ready.”
    Dorian picked up her bread knife. With his Talent, he elongated it and gave it two edges, while she watched. “There’s an aetheling
     named Tavi,” he said. “He’s fearless while the Godking’s still in Cenaria. He may come to . . .  dishonor you. If he does
     . . .  my advice is to only use this if you have the perfect opportunity. Otherwise, don’t throw away your life.”
    The look in her eyes told him if Tavi came, Jenine would try to kill him. Failing that, she’d turn the knife on herself. And
     yet Dorian gave her the knife, knowing she deserved the choice.
    “Now,” he said, “perhaps we can speak of lighter things. Sorry that your food is cold. The hike up the damsel-in-distress’s
     tower is a long one.”
    She smiled at that, a little, shy smile that reminded him of her age, and made him feel like a degenerate old predator. She
     fingered the dagger he’d shaped for her. “You