Free Epic Fantasy Adventure: The Angel's Blessing: Holy Paladin's Quest: Book 1 (Sword and Sorcery Epic Fantasy Adventure Book With Dragons and Magic) by Blaine Hart Page A

fading, but the sea was unconcerned. I sank below the water, my heavy boots leading the way.
    Then I found myself filled with a strange calm.
    I had had a good life. I had learned love. I had seen wonders and magical marvels. I had gazed upon the face of an Angel, and I had helped a great warrior destroy a great evil. I was in a sort of peace as the waters drew me down. I might die, but because of me and my master, many in the Nine Realms would live, though they would never know the tale. Still, the Angel of Glory would know and that thought comforted me. I ceased my struggles and sank into the bosom of the sea.
    It was quiet there. It was warm and dark. I was floating. I was not sinking, but rather I hung adrift in the silence. After a time my lungs wanted air and I knew that in a moment, maybe two, my body’s instincts would overcome me and I would gulp in the water and that would be the end.
    In my haze I thought that I had gone delirious for I saw a woman approach me. She was naked and had such lovely, creamy skin. Her brown hair flowed all about her as if it were caught in a vortex. She smiled at me and her azure eyes sparkled. I thought it might be a kindly hallucination, a sort of final shard of the Angel’s blessing. I was tickled and almost laughed aloud as the vision wrapped her arms around me and kissed me full on the lips. I was neither stunned nor embarrassed, but held the dream-like woman and kissed her back with all the warmth she had given me.
    And then there was a miracle.
    My aching lungs were suddenly filled and the woman felt as warm and solid and real as could be. She pulled away from me, the divine kiss still warm on my lips and she smiled, and even as she pulled away my body was encased in a layer of air. It was as if a shimmering second skin of air had enveloped me, I became like a bubble of life in the ocean depths, and wrapped in that magical bubble I freely breathed in a place where I should have drowned.
    My beautiful Nereid smiled again, a smile of joy and she took my hand. We swam on and to my astonished joy she brought me to my master. Kell floated in a silvery bubble of air as well, grinning and laughing a silent laugh. The woman took his hand in her other and through some power of hers the three of us began gliding easily through the ocean as quick as elegant fishes.
    Our way was swift and our line was straight. I saw many wondrous marvels in that watery realm, things I would strain to recall and log later on. But my mind was on the end of our quest, and I yearned to thank the Angel of Glory and give her all due homage. I longed to be back aboard the Chaos , listening to the Annas bickering, content to sail for home.
    We continued onwards for many hours before our watery savior dragged us up and we broke the surface of the sea in the calm cove before the Angel of Glory’s grotto.
    Suddenly a loud cry shook me from my reverie. “Kell!” a beautiful woman cried. Then she rushed forward and into the ocean, swimming to us and flinging her arms around my master’s neck, kissing him long and deep, right there in the water. “You saved me.”
    “You saved me Wendfala,” my master said as soon as she let him speak several minutes later.
    “I rescued you,” she said, “but only after you destroyed Visalth. When his cursed life was destroyed so were the chains that bound me. Even as we speak, his armies are panicked and fleeing. You are a hero, Kell, and I will see that the whole of the Nine Realms know of your great deed!”
    “Don’t forget my comrade,” he said nodding to me. “My apprentice—“
    “An apprentice learns a trade,” she said. Her eyes scanned me thoughtfully. “Here is a disciple, for truly I see great deeds in both of your futures.”
    She kissed me on the cheek and I blushed.
    “I just hope that’s a wish,” Kell said as we swam, “and not a prophecy.”
    I was tired and I was weary and I so wanted my master’s hope to be true. But that was not to be, for even