Free The Living Throne (The War of Memory Cycle Book 3) by H. Anthe Davis Page A

refused.  And so they left me in the swamp to seek vengeance alone.'
    She reached out with clawed fingers, and at their touch, a memory flooded in: the twitching head of the big wolf in her grip, the threads at work in its neck-stump and between its jaws.  The stink of the swamp, summer-hot yet barren of insects.  The Ravager standing mere yards away in its corpse-shell, black robe soaking up the water, scarred brow arched as it observed.
    And the struggle—anger, fear, denial, rage, every instinct that longed to play itself out through tooth and claw.  The dark counterweight of the Guardian pulled at her, urging her to drop the head and flee, but that gleaming white city still lurked in sight, only a fine screen of trees as a barrier.  She had nothing left to lose, no reason not to go for the throat.
    A predator that turned and ran became prey.  She would not let the Ravager win.
    The memory snapped, and he shook his head vigorously, disoriented and unsettled.  Those threads, so like Dasira's bracer...
    “You shoulda showed me before,” he said, looking up, but Haurah was gone.
    Exhaling, he turned in his tracks to find the others behind him: Vina the ogress, Jeronek the earth-blood, and Erosei.  His father lingered at the rear, watching.
    Jeronek spoke first, square face solemn.  'I will let you see what you can, but I agree that we must not pour our memories into you.  The Guardian departed Haurah before her death, but could not do so for all of us.  We do not wish you to relive such pain.'
    'I might,' said Erosei, grinning unpleasantly.
    Vina leveled a glare on the Kerrindrixi fighter that could have wilted a forest, but he just sneered.  With a snort of disgust, the ebon ogress looked to Cob.  'I do not know that my memories can aid you beyond those you have already seen, but you are welcome to them, Ko Vrin.  I have nothing to hide.'
    “What about you?” said Cob, looking past them to his father.
    For a long moment, Dernyel stayed silent, dark gaze fixed.  Then he said, 'What is it that you wish to see?  Your mother?  Yourself?  The many dusty roads I traveled, the many fruitless councils I attended to try and build resistance to the Empire?  I was no fighter, not until the end.  There is nothing I can show you.'
    Cob gritted his teeth.  “Then why are you here?”
    'Because I would see you safe and well.'
    The knot in Cob's chest tightened, but he would not give these connivers the satisfaction of seeing him snap.  Still, the bitterness burned his tongue as he said, “Good work you've done so far.”
    Dernyel did not respond, only watched him with those inscrutable eyes.
    It seemed to Cob, when he turned to stalk into the woods for some real time alone, that it was all his father had ever done.

 
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter 3 – Blaze and Shadow
     
     
    “Sir, I think you should stop.  And not just because this stuff is expensive.”
    Captain Firkad Sarovy set his glass down and frowned across the desk at his lancer-lieutenant, Erolan Linciard.  It was late evening of Cylanmont 20th, and he had spend much of the past two days cleaning up after his commander's mad need to destroy anything that slighted him.  Specifically, the Bahlaeran Shadowland.
    Argus Rackmar—still Field Marshal, now also interim Crimson General—had already returned to the Crimson camp near Kanrodi, leaving Sarovy with the mess and an offhand order to stabilize the city.  What he actually expected Blaze Company to accomplish, Sarovy did not know, for he been given neither a writ of purpose nor the chance to ask questions.
    Since then, what little time he had not spent in surveying the Shadowland ruins, observing the intake of the many rioters the incident had incited, and moving his men into the central garrison over the objections of the militia commander, had been spent being shrieked at by the city's figurehead, Lord Governor Mekhos Bahdran.  The Lord Governor was incensed by the unannounced military