Kinshield's Redemption (Book 4) Read Online Free PDF

it was.
    “Got it,” he said. “Found a much easier way to handle it.”
    “How’s the headache?” Daia asked.
    “Not bad. The healing magic is making it bearable.” He swiped a finger under his nose. When his finger came away bloody, he wiped it surreptitiously on the pine cone before tossing it aside. “Awright, let’s mix up the mortar.”
    Daia emptied the sand mixture from a bag into a stitched leather bowl and poured enough water from their water skins into it to mix it with a wooden spoon into a putty. Gavin used his hands to form it into five equal-sized balls.
    More confident now, Gavin tossed one large ball of putty up and held it steady with his magic. Being heavier than the pine cone, it took more concentration. He needed to hurry—the putty would harden quickly. He pushed the putty ball up, slowly enough to control but quickly enough that within seconds it was about even with the source of the leak. Moving the putty into position was like trying to make a marionette juggle with his eyes closed. When it was hovering inches from the first leak, he slammed it into place. Rocks around it shifted, and a few fell, bouncing down the mountainside.
    “Look out,” Cirang cried.
    Daia grabbed him by the arm and pulled him backwards. He stumbled over the rocky slope and flailed to regain his balance. When he reopened his hidden eye, he saw that the leak had opened up, and the water flow was at least double what it had been. “Damn it to hell. I made it worse.”
    “How did that happen?” Daia asked.
    “I shoved the putty in too hard,” Gavin said. This wasn’t going to work. He needed a giant bucket of mortar to pour down the mountain from above, but unless he sprouted wings, that wasn’t a viable solution. To return with the mason and a wagon of mortar mixture would give the pooling water another three days to find its way to the Flint River.
    “Next time,” Daia started, “just—”
    “No, I can’t risk it again. We don’t have enough mortar to keep fixing bigger holes.”
    “We can’t let it flow into the Flint or form a river of its own,” Cirang said, fear raising the pitch of her voice. “If it makes its way to Ambryce, the city will be lost.”
    “Let me ask the Guardians for advice,” Gavin said.
    Daia nodded, but Cirang’s mouth dropped open. “You’re going to pray for guidance? My liege, I respect your desire to worship in your own way, but this is a real-world crisis. We need a solution now, and gods aren’t exactly known to answer prayers swiftly.”
    He shook his head as he started towards his horse. It would take only a moment to explain it to her, but this was a woman who’d used people’s own faith against them, including his wife’s. She didn’t deserve an explanation.
    On Golam’s back, he started up the trail they’d taken a few days earlier, when he and his companions had been tracking Cirang after her escape. Curiosity had won over prudence then, and he’d wanted to see the supposed Well of the Enlightened. Cirang called it the Well of the Damned, which had a ring of truth to it. It wasn’t long before Gavin started to think of it that way too.
    The two women battlers mounted and hurried after him.
     

Chapter 4

     
     
 
    “Lord Edan? Might I have a word with you?”
    Edan looked up from the agriculture report on his desk, thankful for the interruption. His eyelids had grown heavy, and his mind had begun to wander. Gavin’s eldest nephew, a tall boy with his father’s dark, wavy hair, stepped into his office, hands clasped behind him. “Of course, Jaesh. Come in. Make yourself comfortable. Is everything all right?”
    Like his brothers and mother, Jaesh had taken his father’s murder hard. It didn’t help that Gavin looked so much like his brother, but if there was a benefit to Gavin’s absence, it was in giving Rogan’s family a reprieve from the constant reminder of their loss.
    “Oh, yeh. I found this book in the upstairs library. It looks