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"You can have the more than to stay in his arms, she forced her mind back to the task they couldn’t afford to leave incomplete "Ask the land to be quiet until you’ve dealt withdown to his knees, Micah touched his fingers to the dry and cracked earth, murmured his plea for quiet Not forever, he proone I ahed, answered with a caress of peace

"Coht-horses in silence, they began the last leg of the journey to the castle that had once been the heart of Elden and was now the seat of such evil it had shattered the earth itself They rode until they reached a place Liliana called the Dead Forest

"I used to play here," he said, rereen of the dew-honey trees heavy with their tulip-shaped flowers, the sy

Now it craith plants the shade of rotten flesh, blackened trees shooting their diseased branches out into the sky The living things that roaremlins - nasty creatures who lived only for death

And ould delight in bringing down a night-horse

"Go," Micah told the proud beasts after they’d disear "We thank you for your help"

The horses shook their heads

Gripping their s that roam here will hurt you, and if they do, Liliana will cry I don’t like it when Liliana cries" He put all the menace he was capable of - and the Guardian of the Abyss was capable of a great deal - into his voice "Go"

The night-horses reared and turned, neighing loudly as they raced away

Going to the saddlebags, he removed the knives and strapped them to Lily’s body so that she would have physical weapons, before picking up his sword

"Wait" Liliana took out the food Emmy had packed and forced they

Prepared as well as they could be, they stepped into the hungry jaws of the Dead Forest Things jeered and skittered at thee plants that s meat, however, tried to lick out, as if they would wrap their enor them into the teeth-filled ressive tongue and the plant screa black blood The others snapped back at the warning Walking past without pause, Liliana used her knife to hack away a vine that had attempted to wrap itself around her ar

Teeth bared in a smile of pride, he walked beside her as they cut, sawed and sliced their way through this once-lush forest becoh their fingers at an inexorable pace Bones crunched underneath his boots sometime later, hours after full dark

"My father," Liliana said, flinching at the sound, deep grooves around her mouth, "disposes of his enemies here or in the lake" A hollow stateer cares, as long as there’s no stench fro flesh"

Micah stepped with ht be of men who had once served the Blood Sorcerer,his way around a skull glealimpse of what had once been Elden Castle

Chapter 26

In hisstone standing in the ht its s had been filled with golden light, while during the day the colorful pennants that spoke of the Royal House of Elden and their allies had flown high overhead Music had rolled out over the lake more often than not, and the causeway that connected the castle to the mainland had been filled with the bustle of movement as the people came and went

What he saw before him was a desecration

He and Liliana had come out of the forest on the opposite side of the lake to the causeway, but even fro the narrow stretch They appeared agitated, their anger vicious But their presence was, in many ways, the easiest to bear As for the castle itself