Free Princess of Death (Three Provinces Book 1) by Renee Travis Page A

Their eyes widened and their heads bowed.
    “Forgive us, Princess, we didn’t know, we never would have attacked had we known,” the other man said.
    “Look at their tattoos.” Nam whispered, standing next to me. The girl had a multi colored bird on her right arm; it was gold with silver wings and a red beak.
    “Ah, you are the Ishu Tribe, the largest Magic Stealers in Salas. Hopefully your leader did not send his best to get slaughtered tonight.” My laugh was harsh, voice sarcastic. Those who stole magic could travel all over Salas, because they could no longer claim any one section as home having taken so many different types of magic into themselves.
    “He sent those he could afford to Princess,” the girl told me from the ground.
    “We will let the three of you live if you tell us everything,” I stated.
    “Of course. Our leader was given quite a bit of Alu magic to make sure you did not make it to Bet Pagri. We were told to look for three Adureeds and a woman with blood curls.” One of the men said “none of us are originally from Adura, Princess, or we would have recognized you.”
    “Your leader also set you up. Someone from Adura would have known that only the royal family has ever had her color hair. He wanted to keep the magic and did not care what happened to the rest of you. I suggest a new line of work.” Nam’s irritation leaked out into his words.
    “We have been camped near Bet Pagri, it is in a state of unrest. A majority of its people think you are their only hope. I believe someone there does not wish for you to end the strife.”  The girl spoke again as her companions helped her off the ground.
    “Thank you for the information, I am sorry for your loss tonight. Now get out of my sight.”  I ordered. They ran off into the night. Thinking, I sat down on my bed and Nam sat next to me.
    “Maybe we should have had some Adura guards come with us, Eshie.”
    “No, we took them just fine. We’ve never really seen what we can do and now we know. We are too powerful for most to interfere with.” I knew my smile looked sadistic in the fire light, but I felt powerful and secure. We had taken them without any problems, glancing around; I curbed my pride not wanting it to become my downfall. If Nam hadn’t been there I might have died.
    “We may have more issues though. What if whoever sends more and next time it’s worse?”
    “How much worse could it be Nam? We’ve taken on Death Nymphs, my parents, a really pissed off  P.O.T. and now Magic Bandits .” I chuckled. Looking into the sky I saw that the moon had risen a bit. We had slept about five hours before we were rudely awakened.
    “Do we want to get back on the Adureeds or sleep some more?” I asked. Nam considered it for a few minutes, before nodding his head.
    “We should get going, use the adrenaline of the fight to push us a little. I bet we could make it to Damu before the next moon setting.”
    I agreed with him, and as I thought it the Adureeds showed up.
    “And where were you during the excitement?” I kidded. I got the impression that they knew we could handle ourselves and would have interfered had things gone badly.
    Nam and I packed up quickly. I didn’t want to say it out loud, but the commotion may have disturbed something we weren’t prepared to deal with quite yet. The natural inhabitants and magics of Adura could be scary, no matter what I’d said to Nam about us taking on anything.  I did not want to have to deal with rogue shades or blood sucking Mormos quite yet.
    Mounting my steed we began to canter, and while I was sure we could reach Damu within hours I didn’t want to feel like I was running from or to something.  We were only a few miles away from a village that primarily produced the artsy type; performers, artists, singers and the like. While Adura was not as creatively inclined as Nannaru, we did have entertainment.
    I could hear singing as we rode by. There was sign at the fork in the road