The Lightning Wastes (The Traveler's Gate Chronicles: Collection #3) Read Online Free

to keep a smile off his face.
    She raised one eyebrow at him, as her aunt would have done. “Well?”
    Without saying a word, Simon walked over to her and extended a hand to help her up. He was still smiling, though, so she ignored him, instead searching around for the weapon she had dropped. When she found it, she shoved it into the ground and used it to prop herself up without Simon's help.
    As Simon looked at the gold-headed, black-hafted Ragnarus spear, his smile faded. “Do you really think you're going to have to use that?”
    “If I do,” Leah said, pushing hair out of her face, “then your presence here will become unnecessary.”
    Simon nodded seriously, and together they began walking after Helene. A few more seconds passed, during which Simon wisely kept his mouth shut. Then his wisdom evidently ran out.
    “Aren’t you cold?” he asked.
    Leah shoved him with the butt of her spear.
    ***
    The Endross outpost looked like a primitive fort. The wall was fifteen feet high and made of logs with the bark still on, lashed together by brown vines. A network of square wooden towers showed above the walls, each one made of rough-hewn timbers. The entire outpost was a square, not a circle as Leah had expected, and from each corner rose a tall metal spike.
    “It’s to catch the lightning,” Helene explained, when Simon asked about them. “Funnels them into a…you know what? I’m not supposed to talk about it. Keeps the whole place from burning down, that’s all you need to know.”
    Two Travelers, a man and a woman, stood guard outside the outpost gate. The woman was dressed in what Leah would expect from one of the Badarin desert people: her head was wrapped in a white cloth, she wore loose-fitting, pale-colored garments, and the pommel of her sword had no bare metal showing. The man dressed more traditionally for Endross Travelers, in a leather breastplate and leather-padded leggings, with a leather cap. A necklace of what looked like lion’s claws hung down over his chest.
    He smiled broadly when he saw them, baring all his teeth like a maniac. “Who goes there.” It was a statement, not a question, delivered in the most evil, threatening voice Leah had ever heard.
    Without being asked, Helene announced them in a clear, ringing voice. “Her Highness Leah the First, Queen of Damasca, seeks an audience with the leader of this outpost.”
    Leah wasn’t ‘seeking an audience’ with anyone. She was demanding the presence of whoever currently commanded this outpost, so that she could get her Travelers back. However, Endross Travelers seemed unlikely to appreciate a political distinction, so she let it slide.
    Simon stood to her right, and at some point he had raised the hood of his cloak. She found herself oddly comforted to have him there, even though—as she reminded herself—she still had her father’s spear. Surely that would be enough to deal with anything an Endross pulled.
    The man lost his smile, and the woman pulled a cloth away from her mouth to whisper in his ear. Her expression said she had never smiled, and did not expect that trend to change anytime soon.
    The man cleared his throat. “You would be looking for Corthis, then. He’s the strongest around here. But you’ll have to prove who you are.”
    Leah and her companions stared at the guard. Before they reached the outpost, Leah had arranged her crown on her head: a silver circlet set with a large ruby. The gem gleamed and pulsed with its own ruby light.
    Hefting the spear, Leah took a step toward the guard. “You want to see proof of my identity?” she asked quietly. With a touch of her will, she prepared the circlet for action. It flared with a harmless red light; the crown wouldn’t activate without more effort on her part, but it still looked impressive.
    The male guard took two steps back. Then one more, just to be safe. The woman stayed where she was, but she cringed from the light nonetheless.
    “Sorry, my Queen, I didn’t