Tides of Rythe (The Rythe Trilogy) Read Online Free

capital city of Lianthre, and if her guard were to be believed, further still, into a frozen waste she knew only as Teryithyr, across the vast expanse of the ocean, unmapped and forbidding.
    But she would return, with or without the wizard. She would destroy the Protectorate, even if it meant the death of her. She was committed. She would even sacrifice the nation for the freedom she thought the people deserved. No longer would her people be cattle.
    She moped at her brow with a handkerchief, and pulled her eyes away from the road. Her thick, dark hair stuck to her face. She pushed it aside, noting the grime under her broken fingernails. She examined her hands – in some respects more interesting than the landscape. She rubbed at them, then withdrew one of her fine bone handled blades from where they hid in sheaths inside her forearms. She began paring and trimming her nails. The blades were too fine for such work, but she was becoming used to much that she would not have dreamed of doing in her former life as a member of the Conclave.
    In some ways, a life on the run was invigorating. She had her friends, as she had come to think of them. She even had Roth, and for that she was grateful. It was running ahead of the caravan, lost to sight in the distance, scouting the road ahead. Without Roth, she would have been dead many times over. She missed the creature when it was not present. She wondered how it was faring in the summer heat. She noted with interest that it had shed some of its thick fur. Perhaps, should it get any hotter, her friend would become bald. She did not think it would like that. After all, we all have our modesty, she thought. But then, without organs to be shy about, why would it worry? Maybe she would ask it. It might make for some amusement in the evening’s camp.
    We all have our secrets, she thought. Roth more than most. One day she would find them out. It wasn’t like she didn’t have time. That was all she had on the road. But the Sard insisted time was growing short. The return was drawing near, th e end of days were in sight.
    Tirielle had a part to play. They called her the Sacrifice, the first of the three prophesised to awaken the wizard. She dreaded to think what that meant. But without playing out the prophesy that concerned her, and her two soul brothers, the Saviour and the Watcher, she would never find a way to stop the return, and so thwart the Protectorate’s designs. There was nothing she would rather do, but she had a duty to fulfil first.
    Quintal and Cenphalph made an effort to explain about the first and the second, the key they spoke of, but she was none the wiser. Apparently the first born would be the Sacrifice, the second would be the Saviour. The Sard didn’t seem to understand what their roles were, or even if there was a point to the names. The idea of being labelled ‘sacrifice’ could only mean one thing to her.
    Tirielle set the thought to one side, as her father had shown her. All in good time, her father would have said. That thought drew a smile from her, one tinged with sadness. He would have approved of her path, and that knowledge brought her peace on the days she doubted herself.
    And still, the end was far from sight.
    Miles and miles they had roamed, Roth leading the way. The horses were much faster but Roth’s sense were the keener.
    Along the way they had avoided the great cities, avoided anywhere larger than a hamlet, or the occasional lone tavern or trading station, where they bought only supplies and moved on, ever onwards, south into the heat. As they rode, and camped, they had become closer. Tirielle almost wished she were a brother, so that she could share everything that the men shared. Perhaps then j’ark would take her into his confidence, and even though he might not give her love, she might get to know him.
    But wishes were butterflies. Friendships lasted more than a day. Once, when they had first met, she had doubted the Sard. Now she trusted