Season of Sacrifice (Blood of Azure Book 1) Jonathan Michael (red novels .txt) 📖

this fine evening. I will finish off this young lad and his girlfriend. Then, we’ll retrieve the corpses.” The men don’t question his command. Every one of them retreats into the wood, including the giant bear. That solves about a dozen of my problems, now just one more.

I have no chance fighting him in hand-to-hand combat. The moment he touches me will be the moment I fail. That’s it! If he can’t touch me, he can’t manipulate me with his talents. I scurry to the nearest fallen warrior and attempt to remove his armor.

“What are you doing, lad? That armor didn’t protect him. What makes you think it’ll protect you?”

The armor isn’t budging. Somehow, it’s securely fastened to the warrior’s body, but I don’t see any ties or clamps of any kind.

“It’s grafted into his skin. You really are a half-wit, aren’t you?” the assassin says as he strolls toward me. “You don’t have a clue to the potential around you, do you? It’s that tyrant Harris Martelli’s fault. He’s the one to blame. He keeps everyone in the dark. You’re capable of so much more, but he snuffed out the wick long ago on all the rumors. That’s why I was banished from this land, you know. I experimented. I wasn’t satisfied with what they limited me to. I knew I was capable of more, but nobody in this forsaken land would allow it. Everyone sees it as taboo to push your talents and experiment with them. To achieve the power the Old Races were capable of.”

“What rumors?” I ask while still trying to pry the rigid bark from the fallen warrior’s shoulders.

“The rumors of the athenaeum.”

“Athenaeum?”

“It’s a tomb, really. A tomb of The First Four. It’s in the city. Although, it’s not really a burial site for The First Four. Just their past lives. There are libraries with scripts upon scripts containing all the knowledge and history of the Old Races in there. I was banished because I tried to uncover the tomb. Parliament doesn’t know it exists, and the Taoiseach couldn’t execute me over something that doesn’t exist, so they exiled me to the Blood Plains for a mundane crime. The murder of two arrogant and careless Grims. That was a mistake they’ll wish they never made. By exiling me, it only gave me time. Time to discover my true potential and gather an army.”

“A score of assassins hardly counts as an army.” I scoff at him.

“A score of assassins.” He laughs at me. “Look at that man you’re trying to rob.”

“Huh?”

“You see a corpse. I see flesh and sinew with pure talent screaming through his veins. He is my army. They all are.” He waves his hand out across the bloodied meadow.

Is that what he meant by retrieving the corpses? Not to bury them or burn them, but to literally retrieve them? Collect them as if they’re a treasure to be counted. My jaw drops. I want to scream at him, but it comes out much more subdued. Almost a whisper. “You are mad.”

He responds with a devilish grin. “There is opportunity here, lad. I’ll ask you only once. Do you have enough resentment and hatred for the Taoiseach and Parliament to join me in overthrowing them?”

“You murdered Fairview while I watched. And you slaughtered an entire village for no reason. A village I’ve grown to be part of. The Taoiseach might have my hate, but you’re fucking crazy if you think I’ll join you.”

He nods his acceptance. “It was rather cutthroat, wasn’t it? Men, women, and children. But there is reason for it.” His eyes widen within his hood. “You’ll see…if you join me. I’ve always lacked in the emotional realm. Sorrow, anger, happiness. They just never came to me very easily.  But I’m not so far out of touch I don’t recognize the pain here. Pain passes, however. Knowledge lasts forever. I see potential in you, lad. Does your answer remain the same if I could lead you to that athenaeum? You could have all the knowledge and power the Old Races possessed. What say you?”

I let go of the armor I’ve been attempting to pry from the corpse. This man is an absolute lunatic. I can’t trust what he says, but what choices do I have? He is a trained killer. The reward is tempting. Is this what Graytu was referring to? I could finally live up to my father’s expectations if I accepted his offer. It’s too late to prove it to him, but I could do it in his honor. If the athenaeum truly does contain the knowledge he speaks of, I could be great. And I don’t have to like this man or even get along with him. He will merely be a vessel carrying me upon the winds of victory, and in the end, I can destroy him. But what am I thinking? Where is the greatness in that? To join the villain in his massacres would make me a villain. There is no greatness in slaughtering the masses. Even if the result is a more savory, nutty, acorn-enriched existence. For Susy’s sake, between this lunatic and the crazy old coot, I’m going to lose my mind. No. This man is a rotten nut.

“I am set to be a Guardian of Azure,” I proclaim as I stand tall. “I will protect life, not slaughter it. I cannot betray all those I care about…for…what? For knowledge? And I presume knowledge is power, is it not? But what is a life of only power. I would lose everyone I cared for if I joined you. Power doesn’t make me great. Those I care for make me great.” I gesture to the man on the ground. “This is not a family I want to spend the rest of my days with. My father would have seized this opportunity. He would have chosen a false