Nightmare Kingdom: A Romance of the Future Read Online Free Page A

like being pirates.
    Well, maybe Adaeze would, but she was fairly sure Lillianne would turn up her pretty nose at the lifestyle of the rebellious people of Kyria.
    With the help of loyal servants, they evaded the watching eyes and exchanged their elegant garments for the humble clothing worn by kitchen workers. Claire and Adaeze were able to hide their long hair underneath the bonnets that such simple women wore and Claire found herself dressed in the straight, short gown commonly worn by little girls.
    She didn’t mind pretending to be a child again. It was like playing a role in a drama , something she’d always enjoyed back at school. She might look like the infant of this trio, but her girls knew who was really there to be in charge and look after them.
    In fifteen years of being the empress of one of the largest and most complicated societies in the known universe, she had learned a few things.
    With the exception of the guards Mere had imported from the army, most of the people in the castle were loyal to her and the princesses. They had been absolutely devoted to the late emperor and he’d left her as regent. That was enough for them.
    Eyes turned away, careful not to look too closely as they slipped one step at a time down to the lower levels of the palace and into the extensive caverns below.
    “It’s so dark down here,” Lillianne whispered as they went deeper and deeper to areas unused for centuries. Claire reached out a hand for each girl pulling them closer to her.
    “We’ve got to do this, Lilli,” Adaeze whispered fiercely. “I will not marry Cousin Varg! He’s pale and snotty nosed and mean. I’ve seen him torture animals.”
    “I don’ t want to marry one of the cousins either.” Claire could feel her usually composed young daughter shiver. “I’m too young to be married.”
    That was true. At eleven Lilli had not yet come into her womanhood, but Adaeze was already thirteen and the women of the Gare were usually given in marriage as soon as they could possibly conceive children in hope their offspring would carry the much desired far talking gift.
    They whispered their grandmother’s plans to Claire as they crept along the darkened corridors of the lowest levels of the palace. Mere had made it clear to her granddaughters that Michel was only a temporary expedient unless, as sometimes happened, he carried a latent talent that might expose itself as he grew up.
    But while they were hoping for that, Adaeze and Lillianne could provide new possibilities in their progeny. And she was anxious to remove the negative influence of their mother from their lives.
    That was Mere’s weakness. She was too candid. She had admitted to her granddaughters that their mom was expendable.
    This disclosure made them united in their determination to escape. Now they slipped out of the palace in the darkness, meeting a prearranged boatman on the Blue River that flowed past the palace, confining the ongoing revolt to the other sides because of the deep and dangerous waters that guarded the south walls.
    Looking like two servant girls and a child being taken away from the violence by a family member skilled at traveling the treacherous waters, they stood waiting for his approach.
    The boatman, an aged but powerful man who had served Mathiah from the time he was a child and whose loyalty to his family had no bounds, saw them into the boat and with silent oars rowed them among other boats on the waterway, skillfully maneuvering through the swift waters away from the palace.
     
    By the time Jamie and his cohorts left Terrainaine, they could feel the difference in the atmosphere. As they loaded the weapons they’d gained in trade for their peaches, Jamie sensed they were being watched by unfriendly eyes in this city where they had always been treated much as adored, though lesser beings. Now there was open hostility in their regard and Sage had warned them against returning anytime soon. He was sure that at any hour, he