Nightmare Kingdom: A Romance of the Future Read Online Free

crease his forehead.
    Mack was quick to catch on. “Would it be rude if we took this chance to stroll around the market?” he asked, not looking at Jamie. “Karen’s been wanting to see some of the imported vegetables.
    Karen was no less quick. “Yeah,” she agreed.
    Smilingly Sage invited them to enjoy perusing his goods and, his other customers remaining at a polite distance, he turned with obvious relief to Jamie.
    “The empire is in chaos,” he said. “The royal guard is supporting the regent and the princesses, but most of the army on Aremia itself has been seized by the old empress. So far Terrainaine is too far away and unimportant to be affected, but it will come to me and to you, my friend.”
    Jamie nodded, his heart seeming to sink into his stomach.
    “Your community will soon need leadership other than this man who tells everybody what they want to hear.”
    Jamie had no doubt of it. He was not an egotistical person, but he knew his city would be better off in his hands and those of his supporters if worse came to worst.
    “Maybe our blood won’t be important anymore with the far speaking trait dying out,” he suggested.
    Sage shook his head, a gesture he had copied from Jamie and his friends. “The old empress hopes that the bo y who sits on the throne will yet show some talent and, even if that doesn’t happen, she plans to breed the young princesses back into the line, certain that Lord Mathiah’s strong abilities will descend to their sons.”
    “That means we are not forgotten,” Jamie said slowly.

THREE
    Guard s stood constantly at their doors now, but Adaeze and Lillianne were still princesses of the realm and even as the flashing lights and whirring sounds of what Claire still thought of as alien weapons resounded through the palace, no one objected when they decided to go for a walk with their mother. Not as long as they didn’t leave the complex of buildings that made up the royal residence.
    Adaeze, grimly certain for a girl who was only thirteen, insisted Claire walk between the two girls. Convinced that her grandmother would not be at all averse to seeing an ‘accident’ befall her daughter-in-law, she believed her mother needed that protection.
    Claire, feeling sure an interchange of opinions occurred silently between the older of her daughters and the guard captain , tried to appear as calm as she would have on any ordinary day within the Gare palace. Walking between the two girls, she even allowed herself an amusing mental image.
    She felt like a bantam hen strolling with two full-sized chicks, moving between her two tall daughters.
    She was grateful that while she couldn’t communicate with the Aremians except through speech, neither could they sense her thoughts. Her mind was a blank tablet to those around her, something that made them think her limited.
    She’d show them the people of Earth had a brilliance and resilience of their own.
    And as for her girls, she had passed on to them half of that distant heritage where she had been just another girl from Chicago, resourceful enough to find her own way in a life independent of her abusive father and uncaring stepmother. All of that seemed long ago now. She had lived as the empress of the Aremian Empire for half her life, but now she, who had relied so long on her husband’s abilities and position, would go back to being that fearless young fighter to save her daughters and herself from the horrors their grandmother and the Gare aristos had in mind for them.
    They had to escape and as far as she could see only two possibilities lay before them. They could flee to the rebels on the pirate world of Kyria, or they could do their best to get to Jamie and her other friends on New London.
    Underneath their clothing they had concealed a fortune in the most valuable of the jewels Mathiah had given her over the years. She could only hope that these would buy their way to Sanctuary. She didn’t think either of her daughters would