King of Assassins: The Elven Ways: Book Three by Jenna Rhodes Page B

they rowed with quick and steady strokes. He dropped the orb, pain throbbing through his hand as if it had burned to his very core.
    It fell among its mates and rolled to a stop on the bruised and tender green grasses of the cliff top, shaded by the workings of the cradle. He folded one hand over the other gingerly in protection, but the heat fled as quickly as it had come, and his flesh seemed none the worse for it. How could he have felt such heat and not been seared by it?
    Tranta stared down. Shaded, no longer refracting the light of the sun, he expected to see the dazzle dim and then bleed out altogether, but the orb glowed steadily. Then, one by one, other orbs caught fire in the rubble. His head felt muzzy as the vibration picked up strength to thrum louder and stronger in warning. He stood among them as belief forced its way into his body and mind. The Jewel of Tomarq lived still. She served, even broken and shattered and unable to strike as she had been faceted to strike, but she sounded the alarm. He squatted again, to be closer to the glowing stones. Their color grew even more brilliant as he knelt over them, as his belief in them grew. The Way had been changed, malformed by the attack, but she had not been broken.
    Triumph surged through him. She had been made to be used, freed to face the sun in all its glory, and she wanted to be used still. He had only to find a new Way for her. He filled his pouch with a handful of the larger pieces, gems the size of his fist, experiments flooding his mind.
    The Kernan foreman cut short the moment he was savoring. “Istlanthir! Lord. A bird has come to the field post.”
    Warmth still flooded his mind. He blinked it away. “Back to roost?”
    “Nay, lordship, a new bird. Field owl, it looks like. Has th’ other birds all in a fright. No one dares go near it, so the master sent me for you.”
    That cleared his mind like a dash of cold seawater. “Field owl, you say?”
    “So the coop lad marked it. He’s a bit dim, that lad, but he knows his fowl.”
    “He should.” Tranta opened his barrier and stepped through again, the afternoon sun on the back of his neck. He tightened his hair in its brace, the ponytail snagging a few blue strands on his rough hands as he did so. He shook them off and watched them drift away like spiderwebs on the wind off the sea cliffs. The ild Fallyn engineer sat on a stump, charts and diagrams held down by rocks on a table in front of him, but lifted his gaze long enough to give Tranta a jerk of a nod as he passed.
    Tranta did not trust the man any further than he could throw him, but it was not politic to slight him any more than it would have been to refuse his help. Was that a bird feather drifting off the hem of the man’s short cloak as Tranta passed? And if it was . . . why?
    Before Tranta could think much more on it, the coop lad came pelting up the crest of the hill. He carried the field owl in both hands, unaware of the creature’s ability to rip him open with either beak or talon. He thrust the carrier at Tranta. “Sir! Sir!” Then he stood panting, too winded to say anything else.
    Tranta put his forearm out and spoke a soothing word, and the owl turned harvest moon eyes on him, blinking. “Fed him yet?”
    “Just a scrap, sir. Just a shred.”
    “See to it, then, soon as I get the tube off.” Tranta felt the owl settle on his arm and close its claws tight about him. Owls felt even lighter than most birds. It swiveled its head about to fix its gaze on his face. Tranta spoke a few more words, nonsense really, part of a sea chantey that had been in his head all day, and the owl settled, eyes half-closed. He rubbed the knuckle of his finger down its chest. It radiated heat just as the Jewel of Tomarq rubble had. He found the tube and untied it quickly. The owl dipped its beak down to rub the back of his hand as he did so, and found itself transferred briskly back to the coop lad’s arm. “Go and feed him. Settle him in, but