Lightnings Daughter by Mary Herbert (read me a book txt) 📕

of noblemen. "I'll help,” he said, adding his weight to the door. The courtiers looked startled but they wanted badly to reach their ruler, so they moved over to include him. Al three threw their strength at the door, but the wood did not budge.

One of the noblemen sagged against the door. He was breathing heavily, perspiration dripping down around his round face, and his eyes were wide in fear. "I can't believe this!" he cried. "A riot in the streets, a fire in the palace, and she hides in her throne room. What are we going to do?"

More crashes sounded upstairs. Cries and screams filled the corridors beyond the audience hall, and the distant rumble of thunder sounded outside.

The frightened nobleman shoved himself away from the door and ran for the other room.

"Wait!" His companion shouted after him.

"You save the shrew,” he cried and dashed out.

The other men looked at one another. The courtier gave Piers an odd glance before turning away.

"There is no other way in?" Gabria asked.

They shook their heads and bent to try again.

"Look out!" the guard bellowed, leaping sideways as a smoldering chunk of the ceiling collapsed where he had been standing. Smoke bil owed through the hole, and the room was lit by the lurid glow from the flames in the timbers above the false ceiling.

"We'l never get this door open this way," the old nobleman shouted over the crackling of the fire.

"Are you sure she's in there?" demanded Piers.

The guard replied, "She ran by here a little while ago, before we knew of the fire,” He shivered and gripped his sword. "It was strange. She looked wild! Just slammed the door and barred it."

Gabria stared at the door while the guard was talking, and in her mind she formed the words of a spell. "Piers, get out of the way,” she ordered.

Before the two Pra Deshians could argue, Piers hustled them aside. Gabria raised her hand and concentrated on focusing her magical energy. In that moment she sensed again the strange feeling of growing power, and this time she recognized what it was: the latent magic in the area was increasing.

The phenomenon was stil not strong enough that she could identify the cause of the increase, so Gabria set the puzzle aside for now. She spoke the command for her spel . In a breath, the door col apsed into a heap of splinters and wood dust.

"Oh, Elaja!" the guard wailed, and he, too, took to his heels out of the room toward the audience hall.

"Nicely done, Gabria," Piers said thankfully.

"The sorceress?" the remaining nobleman gasped.

Gabria tried to reassure him. "We're here for Branth, nothing else. Do you know where he is?"

"Dead, I hope," the man snarled. He thrust his body into the open doorway and blocked their path.

"I thought I knew you from somewhere," he shouted at Piers. "You're the healer whose daughter was condemned for sorcery! Well, you helped kill one Fon, but you won't get this one."

Keth leaped past Gabria and lifted his sword. Piers held him back. He finally recognized the man.

"Ancor, I had nothing to do with the poisoning and neither did my daughter."

The courtier would not listen. "Her own husband admitted it!" he yel ed.

Piers shouted fiercely in reply. "And where is he? Keeping the prince of Calah company in the bottom of the pit?"

The old man blanched as if that thought had occurred to him in the past. "The Fon told us his ship went down with no survivors," he said defensively.

Another chunk of burning ceiling crashed to the floor, setting rugs and a tapestry alight.

"Healer," Keth cal ed, "we've got to get out of here."

"Not without the Fon," Piers answered harshly, and he tried to push past the nobleman.

The danger of the fire and the anger on Piers's face made the old man frantic. "No! Leave this place," he shouted. "You are a traitor and your daughter was a murdering heretic!"

Gabria was watching her friend and saw something break in the normally quiet, gentle man. All of the fury, the guilt, and the sense of injustice he had been carrying within him for eleven years had been stirred up by the sight of the dungeon and by the flood of memories that engulfed him. That this insulting old man would dare call his beloved daughter a murdering heretic was more than Piers could bear.

With a roar of fury, the healer balled his fist and hit the nobleman in the face. The man fell like a poleaxed cow. Piers sprang over his body and dashed into the throne room with Gabria and Keth close on his heels.

No sooner were they through the door than they al skidded to a halt. Their attention was drawn to a large, canopied throne that sat on a wide dais against the opposite wall. The fire had already reached this smal , opulent room through the ceiling.

Sparks and flaming chunks of wood were raining down, starring more fires on carpets, tapestries, and on the red canopy over the golden throne. Beneath the flaming canopy sat the Fon of Pra Desh, her eyes staring horribly at the intruders.

Piers's fury stil burned in his blood. Without a conscious plan, he snarled a curse and ran toward the Fon, ignoring the smoke and flames.

"Piers, no!" Gabria shouted.

The healer lifted his hand as he raced up the marble steps of the dais, and he was about to grab the Fon when she looked up at him.

The healer faltered. He hardly recognized the woman. Her face was twisted into such a mask of horror that he realized instantly she had slipped beyond the edges of sanity. Her eyes were empty of reason and filled with insensible fear. When she saw him, the Fon cowered down into her seat, moaning and trembling in terror.

Piers stared at her with pity and astonishment. What had happened to turn this strong-willed woman into a crazed, fearful wreck?

He was about