Free A Rite of Swords (Book #7 in the Sorcerer's Ring) by Morgan Rice Page A

stood, looking at him
with such love in her sparkling eyes, delight in her face at seeing him.
    Reece, caught off guard, had to
blink several times, wondering if it was real or just a figment of his
imagination.
    “I’ve been looking for you
everywhere,” she said. “I found your Legion brothers, and they told me I might
find you at the banquet table.”
    “Did they?” Reece said, still
staring into her smiling eyes, hardly able to speak. He wanted to tell her so
many things at once, how much he loved her, how he had never stopped thinking
of her.
    But instead he stood there,
frozen with nervousness. The words would not come out. As he stood there
awkwardly, silently, she began to look unsure, as if wondering whether he were
interested in even speaking with her.
    “I’ve wanted to speak to you
since you left my village,” she said. “I tried to find you, and I learned you
were gone.”
    “Yes, in the Empire,” Reece said.
“On a quest for the Sword. We only just came back. I did not think I would come
back at all.”
    “I’m glad you did,” she said.
    He looked at her, wondering.
    “Why?” he asked. “I thought, back
in the village, you had said you didn’t like me.”
    She cleared her throat and worry
crossed her brow.
    “I thought more about what you’d
said to me. About how you love me. About how I said it was crazy.”
    He stared back at her, nodding.
    “But the thing is, I didn’t mean
it,” she added. “You’re not crazy. Those feelings you felt, I feel them, too.
You see, I didn’t come to Silesia for safe harbor. I came here to find you.”
    Reece felt his heart soaring as
he heard her words, hardly able to process them. She was saying the very same
things that had been on his mind.
    He raised a hand and ran it along
her cheek.
    “On my quest, I thought of you
and nothing else,” he said. “You are what sustained me.”
    She smiled wide, her eyes aglow.
    “I prayed every day for your safe
return,” she said.
    The music rose again, and couples
broke out dancing at the sound of the harp and the lyre.
    Reece smiled and held out a hand.
    “Will you dance with me?” he
asked.
    She looked down and smiled, and
lay her hand in his. It was the softest feel of his life, and his fingers felt
electrified at the touch.
    “There is nothing I would love
more.”
     

CHAPTER
TWELVE
     
     
    Luanda stood beneath the
torchlight, against the stone wall on the periphery of the courtyard of
Silesia, watching the festivities, and seething. There was her sister,
Gwendolyn, in the center of it all, as she had always been since they were
kids, adored by everyone. It was just like it had been growing up: she, Luanda,
the oldest, had been passed over by their father, who had showered all his
affections on his youngest daughter. Her father had treated her, Luanda, as if
she’d barely existed. He had always reserved the best of everything for
Gwendolyn. Especially his love.
    Luanda burned as she thought of
it now, as she watched Gwendolyn, the charmed one, and it brought back fresh
memories. Now here they were, so many years later, their father dead, and
Gwendolyn still in the center of it all, still the one who was celebrated,
adored by everyone. Luanda had never been very good at making friends, had
never had the charisma or personality or natural joy for life that Gwendolyn
had. She did not have the kindness or graciousness either; it just wasn’t
natural to her.
    But Luanda didn’t care. In place
of Gwendolyn’s kindness and charm and sweetness, Luanda had outright ambition,
even aggression when she needed it. She displayed all the aggressive qualities
of her father, while Gwendolyn displayed all the sweet ones. Luanda did not apologize
for it; in her view, that was how people got ahead. She could be blunt and
direct and even mean when she had to be. She knew what she wanted and she got
things done, no matter who or what got in her way. And for that, she had always
assumed people would admire and