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ks that I realized that the room was actually white, not pink, and that my vision was tinted red, perhaps permanently.
When I awoke again, there were two boys sitting at my bedside, and I recognized them at once, although their clothing and faces were red.
They smiled at me when I opened my eyes, but there was something constrained and strained about their smiles, and their eyes were redder than the rest of them. They didn’t say anything, but I knew they were waiting for me to speak.
It would have been nice to say something to them, but I felt this incredible crushing weight each time I opened my mouth. And my lids felt so heavy that I fell back asleep. When I woke back up I was alone, and wondered if I’d dreamt them.
But as I hadn’t dreamt anything else, I figured they must have been there. With the light of the moon through the skylight I could faintly see where their stools still stood.
I fell asleep again then, and for the first time in weeks, I dreamt. I dreamt a dream that would haunt me for the several weeks of my recovery. I was in a long hallway. I must have been very young, four or five. I walked quietly, and the stone was cold under my bare feet.
There was a light at the end of the tunnel, and a tall man with green eyes was staring down at me, smiling. The man opened his mouth, and even before he spoke, I knew what he was going to say, but that changed nothing. At this point I would always try to wake up or change the dream, but the dream would not change. I walked down the corridor, towards the light, towards the smiling face, towards the man with the green eyes who stood in his nightgown next to my mother, his arm around her, looking down at me, and he spoke the word, always the same word, Neffe.
And although I always wanted to scream and wake up then, the dream never ended with the word. I walked on up to the man, and hugged him, and said Onkel. Only when he had hugged me, and I felt my uncle’s blood red aura mingle with my own, would I finally wake up. Sitting up in bed, I would wonder if this dream was the last, if it was even a true memory, or something that the dark lord sent my way every night so I wouldn’t forget him in that room full of whiteness and natural light.
Then I would fall asleep again.
And if I was very, very lucky, then I would sleep dreamlessly until morning, when I would wake up and try to forget, try to heal, and to prepare.
For revenge.
Author’s Note
I hope you enjoyed the first volume of Return of the Dragons.
If you enjoyed this book, feel free to share your enjoyment with other readers. Consider reviewing Sword Bearer, so others can find and enjoy the book as well.
You can find news about my writing at my website
http://www.teddyjacobs.com
As well as information about Wind Rider, book two in the series.
There you can also find my contact information, which is
[email protected]
Special Offer for all My Fans:
If you enjoyed Sword Bearer, and write a review, I will send you a free electronic copy of another one of my books of your choice. Just send me an email with a link to the review.
Sneak preview of WIND RIDER, book II of Return of the Dragons
BOOK II: WIND RIDER
Chapter I
When I woke and found the room around me finally completely white, without the slightest tint of red, nothing even remotely pink, I got up and walked out and hoped never to enter the room again. I’d been in bed for weeks, and spent my time staring at the ceiling, dreaming, and daydreaming. None of it had been pleasant: not the endless waiting, not the dreams that were always the same nightmare — my little four year old feet cold on the stone corridor, the passageway dark and clammy and unfriendly, and up ahead in the welcoming light my uncle and my mother standing together, in their nightclothes, smiling at me. Then my uncle would call out to me: neffe, nephew.
It had taken weeks for my eyes to clear. The dark lord, my uncle, had burned red into my eyes, all three of them, when he had killed Marga, the mother of my best (and only) friend.
Once I had been just another sixteen year old, although I can’t say I had a normal childhood – instead of school, I had a tutor, and my parents locked me up in my room to study for long periods of time. The only good thing back then was the time I spent with my blademaster, swinging a staff, and with his wife, Ana, a witch who had taken care of me when I was little. Then I was sixteen, and Giancarlo, the blademaster, had let me pick out a wooden sword. And I’d picked a magical sword, and then everything had gone crazy. First my sword sang to me, making me do this crazy dance, which helped me beat my blademaster in a sparring match. Then later trying to concentrate in my locked room I formed a gateway instead, and pulled Kara, a kriek princess, out through a hole in the wall.
Kara had been at my bedside almost every day, and my face got warm, thinking about her. We had escaped the castle with the help of Kalle, another kriek, escaped narrowly from a powerful wizard, Gerard, escaped only to be attacked by giant wild boars, keiler, talking beasts who stood on their hind legs when they wished and who served the dark lord. And they had called me herr, or master. And in the battle against them I had killed, for the first time.
I didn’t like to remember what that was like, but it still kept coming back to me, whether I liked it or not.
We had stumbled our way into the ancient city, and somehow my blood had told me what runes to touch so we could enter … And the gates had opened, to more trouble.
