A Realm of Shadows by Morgan Rice Page B

continued, shaking his head, looking to the floor with sadness. “Women
and children, young and old, strong and lame. They killed all that remained of
this fort.”
    “Trolls?” she asked
warily, almost afraid to ask.
    He nodded back
solemnly.
    “Your father
could not have anticipated this,” he replied. “Now all that we have left,
ironically, are these tombs.”
    Softis stepped
forward, limping through the room, running his hand along the bronze
sculptures, along the stone sarcophagi.
    “Great men they
were,” he said. “Men to look up to. Men whose problems were as pressing in
their times as ours. They were men of valor. Men we must remember always.”
    He turned to her,
his eyes aglow.
    “They are your people, Kyra. Your blood. It runs through you, this blood of valor. Armis the Great:
a man who killed a dozen men with a single pull of a bow. Arcard the Strong: a
man who fought off a legion of soldiers with a single sword. Aseries the Lone:
a man who fought alone, refused to stand with an army, and killed more men on
his own than entire villages together.”
    He turned to
her.
    “These are you ,
Kyra. You are not separate from them. You are one and the same. Your ancestors’
blood courses through you, and they all watch over you. They all depend on you
now. You are all they have left.”
    He stepped forward
and grasped her shoulders with a surprising strength.
    “Don’t you see,
Kyra? You are all they have left.”
    He stared into
her eyes, a glimmer of his old intensity shining through, like a candle on its
last flame.
    “What will you
do, Kyra? Will you make them proud?”
    She nodded back
gravely.
    “Yes,” she said,
meaning it. “I will.”
    “Even if it
means risking your life?”
    “Yes,” she
replied. “With all that I am.”
    She felt her words
were true, and as she spoke them, she felt a vibration run through her palms,
as if the spirits lingering in the room had heard her and had approved.
    Softis stared at
her for a long time, as if gauging the truth of what she said, and finally he
nodded in approval.
    “Good,” he said.
    He sighed and
withdrew his hand, yet still he studied her.
    “Of all the
great men,” he added, “who had ever fought for Volis, of all the warriors they
thought would be the standard bearer, the greatest of them all was you , Kyra.”
    Kyra stared
back, shocked.
    “Me?” she asked.
    He nodded.
    “That was what
they could not have seen,” he replied. “All along, for all these generations,
it was you they were waiting for. You , a simple girl, who is far
more than that.”
    Kyra’s hands trembled
as she pondered the weight of his words.
    “Do not shy from
danger, Kyra,” he urged. “Seek it out. That is the only way to save your life.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN
     
     
    Kyle opened his
eyes, disoriented, wondering where he was. He reached out and felt cold grass
and dirt between his fingers, felt a heavy weight atop him, nearly suffocating
him. He also felt something curious licking his palm, nudging him awake.
    Kyle leaned back
and shoved off the armor. Breathing hard from the effort, free of the weight, Kyle
looked about and was horrified at what he saw. He was surrounded by dead
bodies. He lay in a field of corpses—thousands of them—Pandesian soldiers and
trolls mingled together, all charred, faces frozen in death masks of agony. The
land, too, was scorched around them, burned by the dragons’ breath, and as Kyle
pushed the last of the shields and heavy armor off of him, he realized at once that
the only reason he had survived was because of the metal and corpses shielding
him.
    He continued to
feel the tongue on his palm, and Kyle, remembering, looked over and was shocked
at who he saw: Leo. Kyra’s wolf. Somehow it had sought him out, had found him,
had crossed Escalon searching for him, and had nudged him awake. Of course, it
made sense: Leo was fanatically devoted to Kyra, and he must have sensed that
Kyle could lead him to her. That also, though, meant