Skein of Shadows Read Online Free

night; she’d been too tired to do more than take a quick bath and tumble into bed, and Elix’s waiting arms.
    The thought of the young captain eased the frown from her face, and the corners of her mouth were just twitching upward when she pushed open the servants’ door and entered the dining room. The fledgling smile froze on her lips when she saw the room’s occupants.
    There were guards at both the kitchen door she’d entered through and on either side of the dining room’s main doors. Stone-faced dwarves in the livery of House Kundarak stood at attention, battle-axes in hand. She didn’t have to be a mage to know those blades were heavily-spelled, possiblythe equal to her own urgrosh, the absence of which she felt sharply in the face of this unexpected threat.
    Count Wilhelm didn’t even allow his own guards in the dining room; he considered it uncivilized. If there were warriors from another House here, it couldn’t be with his permission.
    She tensed, mentally calculating how long it would take her to reach the knives on the table and how much damage she might be able to do with them before the dwarves brought her down. But as she surveyed the men sitting around the table, she saw that they were relaxed and seemingly unconcerned about the armed dwarves in their midst.
    Count Wilhelm was at the head, of course, his brown hair shot through with silver and still worn in tight military fashion, though he hadn’t served Deneith in that capacity in many years, leaving that to Elix, and Ned before him. But he still sparred with his swordmaster every morning, and Sabira knew soldiers half his age who weren’t as fit of form. There was no paunch hiding under the bloused shirt he wore, no slackness in the muscles that propelled him to his feet at her entrance, followed by three others.
    Elix, in another of his tunics, this one green with a small chimera embroidered over his heart, beat his father to his feet and smiled hugely at her over the laden table. Across from him, on Wilhelm’s left, was another dwarf—Aggar Tordannon, the heir to the dwarven city of Frostmantle and her own brother, now that she had been formally adopted into his clan by the Ceremony of Blood, Steel, and Stone. His fiery red beard clattered as he stood, the newly-polished beads woven into its many braids dancing with the suddenmovement. True to form, Aggar’s clothes were as glaring as the Deneiths’ were understated—a scarlet tunic sporting the Tordannon crest, bright purplish blue pants and a cloak the color of new spring leaves, edged in orange. Just looking at him for too long made her head ache.
    But not as much as the sight of the man standing beside him. Though she hadn’t seen him in almost two decades, Sabira would recognize that stubborn set of jaw and the hard glint in those gray eyes anywhere—she saw them every time she looked in the mirror. The tension that had just begun to ooze away returned in full measure and her hand reached instinctively for an axe-haft that wasn’t there.
    Khellin Lyet, lately of Dreadhold.
    Her father.
    “Saba,” he said, the smile twisting his thin lips not quite making it to his eyes. “So good to see you again.”
    Sabira highly doubted that. That last time she’d seen him, he was being led out of a courtroom in Karrlakton after having been convicted for the attempted assassination of Baron Breven. Considering it was her testimony that had sent him away, she imagined she was the last person in all of Eberron he ever wanted to lay eyes on again.
    He was certainly on
her
list of least favorite faces, which begged a question.
    “What in the name of the Dark Six is
he
doing here?”
    Khellin’s smile widened, and even though her question hadn’t been directed at him, he replied with more than a hint of smugness.
    “Why, I was invited, of course.”
    Sabira turned her gaze to Elix, whose own smile disappeared at the look on her face.
    “
Why
?”
    How? was another good question, considering