Heir to Thorn and Flame by Ben Alderson EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Status: Available for Free Download
- Author: Ben Alderson
- Language: English
- Genre: Fantasy Fiction
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2 MB
- Price: Free
There were countless reasons why the library was my favourite room in the
Gathrax manor; the portraits of long dead mages weren’t one of them. The
manor was a maze of rooms, ballrooms with elaborate chandeliers, and
dining halls larger than most homes in the town. Of them all, the library
warmed my soul. It was a place of comfort and escape. If Dame—the Lead
of the Gathrax’s army of servants—had not been assisting me, I might have
slipped a book into my jacket to take home for later enjoyment.
I stared at the painting before me. It was one of many adorning the walls
in the library, but certainly the biggest, taking up an entire wall by itself.
The unnamed artist had colourfully depicted the Heart Oak, bathed in
furious black flame.
‘In all of your twenty-five years, Maximus Oaken, that darn painting
hasn’t changed,’ Dame chortled, her voice rasped with age. ‘If you want to
finish up early, get back to dusting.’
I glanced over my shoulder as the ancient woman poked her head
around a stack of shelves, the spectacles on the end of her nose enlarging
her colourless eyes. ‘I’m in no rush,’ I replied. ‘Dancing isn’t exactly high
on the list of things I enjoy.’
‘Well.’ Dame waved an oiled cloth at me in dismissal. ‘I bloody enjoy
dancing, so get to it. These old bones deserve to rattle tonight.’
Dame always had a way of making me laugh. With a dramatic wink, her
magnified eye was as comical as her grin.
‘Dryads help you,’ I called out, disappearing around a stretch of
shelves, each double stacked with old tomes. ‘Rattling bones doesn’t sound
as enticing as you think.’
‘Don’t knock it until you try it, love.’
For such a stern-looking woman, Dame certainly looked out for me,
more so than her other members of staff. It was likely because she’s known
me from such a young age. Like the other children unfortunate enough to be
born within the servants’ quarters, I was put to work by the age of six.
Dame had kept her eye out for me since.
I called it favouritism; she called it pity.
Plucking the cloth from my belt, and retrieving the vial of oil from my
pocket, I left the painting behind, although the image was always deep in
my mind. My nose itched as the scent of ancient novels and dust struck me.
Time, and lack of use, blended into a pleasant smell. The stale air carried
the echo of countless stories. Over the years, I had read many of them,
though servants weren’t allowed to so much as touch the Gathraxs’s
collection of tomes. King Gathrax preferred his servants to lack education;
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