Read Online Blades Of Illusion: Crown Service #2 by Terah Edun - Free Book Online
Authors: Terah Edun
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keep him moving one step further, including begging, bribery or outright threats.
Sara’s eyes flicked away from Ezekiel’s to take in the unforgiving swamp around them. The land was a verdant green—a tangle of moss, vines, and more mysterious vegetation erupting everywhere. The vines hung from the tree branches high above and crept around the thick trunks like snakes. In fact, the vines were so large and so well-mimicked by the cold-eyed reptiles of the swamp that sometimes she missed the subtle difference between ropy vines and thick coils of camouflaged muscles. They lay so still for moments, like a disguise, but eventually their creeping movements gave them up as living animals and not the flora they mimicked. This swamp was a treacherous place. Venomous creatures seemed to lurk behind every tree stump and in the deceptively still waters of the deep bogs. Sara turned her calculating orange eyes back onto her only friend in the company, and she became uncomfortable at what the left side of his face presented. The formerly normal features now looked as if they were slowly melting off like wax in the hot sun. Sara didn’t flinch for two reasons. The first was the fact that although Ezekiel’s face was an uncomfortable visage, it wasn’t a scary one. The second reason was that Sara was familiar with the effects that paralysis could have on a person’s body.
She remembered face of a former gladiator that she had known from childhood. His features, too, had looked like melting wax. But it had been much more severe, in Sara’s opinion. Severe and permanent. For as long as she had known him, the man had not been able to move his left arm or leg, and he spoke with a heavy speech impediment. But that hadn’t stopped him from being who he was. A kind man. A sane man. And a determined warrior. But he used his learned warrior skills in other ways after his ‘accident’, which had happened long before Sara was born. He couldn’t speak without long pauses and confusing enunciation, but his right hand had worked just fine. So he had drawn maps of the entire empire for her father and tutored Sara in the geography of the Algardis Empire, in addition to earning his keep at her father’s villa as a weapons sharpener.
That last task he had insisted on. In his slow and mangled speech, Sara remembered his explanation to her as to why, when being a mapmaker was just as good and steady a trade—an even better one, actually.
“My mind is sharp, girl, but my weapons must be sharper. I may not wield the sword anymore, but your father does, and those weapons must be sharp,” he said in a long speech that took twice as long for him to say as it would her or anyone else, “Ready to pierce a rib cage and cleave a skull. I know these blades like I knew my own. Therefore, I’ll prepare them for war and for combat.”
He had pinned her with a fierce glare then.
She had gulped and nodded, not really understanding the determination back then. He could have just set one of the squires to the task, after all. But she didn’t question him. Instead, she fetched the extra polish he had wanted for the metal and got back to the chore she had been punished with—shining two dozen swords until they gleamed.
Sara grimaced. She couldn’t remember what she’d done to deserve the punishment usually given to her father’s squires, but she knew whatever she had done to be assigned the task had to have been a troublesome quarrel. Luckily for her, she’d gotten to spend time with the monstrous man she’d stared at around corners from afar. She had also come to learn that perhaps he wasn’t so monstrous as his melting face made him seem.
After she had watched him silently sharpen the weapons using an ingenious foot-powered whetstone wheel for over half an hour, she had been so fascinated that she spent the morning half-polishing the swords and half-nicking herself with the blades because her eyes weren’t focused on her own task. There had
Sara’s eyes flicked away from Ezekiel’s to take in the unforgiving swamp around them. The land was a verdant green—a tangle of moss, vines, and more mysterious vegetation erupting everywhere. The vines hung from the tree branches high above and crept around the thick trunks like snakes. In fact, the vines were so large and so well-mimicked by the cold-eyed reptiles of the swamp that sometimes she missed the subtle difference between ropy vines and thick coils of camouflaged muscles. They lay so still for moments, like a disguise, but eventually their creeping movements gave them up as living animals and not the flora they mimicked. This swamp was a treacherous place. Venomous creatures seemed to lurk behind every tree stump and in the deceptively still waters of the deep bogs. Sara turned her calculating orange eyes back onto her only friend in the company, and she became uncomfortable at what the left side of his face presented. The formerly normal features now looked as if they were slowly melting off like wax in the hot sun. Sara didn’t flinch for two reasons. The first was the fact that although Ezekiel’s face was an uncomfortable visage, it wasn’t a scary one. The second reason was that Sara was familiar with the effects that paralysis could have on a person’s body.
She remembered face of a former gladiator that she had known from childhood. His features, too, had looked like melting wax. But it had been much more severe, in Sara’s opinion. Severe and permanent. For as long as she had known him, the man had not been able to move his left arm or leg, and he spoke with a heavy speech impediment. But that hadn’t stopped him from being who he was. A kind man. A sane man. And a determined warrior. But he used his learned warrior skills in other ways after his ‘accident’, which had happened long before Sara was born. He couldn’t speak without long pauses and confusing enunciation, but his right hand had worked just fine. So he had drawn maps of the entire empire for her father and tutored Sara in the geography of the Algardis Empire, in addition to earning his keep at her father’s villa as a weapons sharpener.
That last task he had insisted on. In his slow and mangled speech, Sara remembered his explanation to her as to why, when being a mapmaker was just as good and steady a trade—an even better one, actually.
“My mind is sharp, girl, but my weapons must be sharper. I may not wield the sword anymore, but your father does, and those weapons must be sharp,” he said in a long speech that took twice as long for him to say as it would her or anyone else, “Ready to pierce a rib cage and cleave a skull. I know these blades like I knew my own. Therefore, I’ll prepare them for war and for combat.”
He had pinned her with a fierce glare then.
She had gulped and nodded, not really understanding the determination back then. He could have just set one of the squires to the task, after all. But she didn’t question him. Instead, she fetched the extra polish he had wanted for the metal and got back to the chore she had been punished with—shining two dozen swords until they gleamed.
Sara grimaced. She couldn’t remember what she’d done to deserve the punishment usually given to her father’s squires, but she knew whatever she had done to be assigned the task had to have been a troublesome quarrel. Luckily for her, she’d gotten to spend time with the monstrous man she’d stared at around corners from afar. She had also come to learn that perhaps he wasn’t so monstrous as his melting face made him seem.
After she had watched him silently sharpen the weapons using an ingenious foot-powered whetstone wheel for over half an hour, she had been so fascinated that she spent the morning half-polishing the swords and half-nicking herself with the blades because her eyes weren’t focused on her own task. There had
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