The Awakened Mage Read Online Free PDF Page A

this kingdom a smoking ruin before ever I see you on its throne!”
    Jarralt raised a shaking fist. “Just like your father, you overstep all bounds. Magic or no magic, you’re not fit to rule! You’re nothing but the unnatural offspring of a selfish and short-sighted fool!”
    Gar’s golden aura deepened. Flared crimson, like a fire fed fresh fuel. Jarralt was forced half a pace backwards. “Stand in Justice Hall and say that, Conroyd,” Gar whispered. “I dare you. Stand in Justice Hall and see what the people reply.”
    Conroyd Jarralt sneered.
“The people.
That undisciplined rabble of Olken? That’s who you’d call for your support? You wretched boy, if they are all you can rely upon then—”
    Dismayed, Asher jumped as Pellen Orrick leaned close and whispered urgently, “Do something, Asher, quick, before the fools go too far.”
    “Me?”
He stared. “Why
meV
    “Because you’re the only one here the prince’ll listen to.”
    Gar was shaking, his face screwed up against every kind of pain. “Is this disaster your doing, Conroyd? Is your appetite for power so ravenous you’d
kill
to feed it? My father, my mother—”
    “Kill your mother? “
Heedless of Gar’s crimson mantle of power, of his torn flesh and broken bone, Jarralt grabbed him by the shirt front and dragged him to his toe-tips. “You pathetic little worm, I
loved
your mother!” he cried. “I love her still! If she’d married me she’d be alive this minute! If she’d married me I’d have given her a
real
prince! A son she could be
proud
of!”
    “My lords!” shouted Asher, and threw himself at Jarralt. Snatched at the incensed man’s hands and dragged them free of Gar’s shirt, then shoved Gar in the chest, heedless of the danger, sending him staggering back two paces. “For
shame,
sirs, both of you! The royal family dead and you brawling like drunken sots in an alehouse!”
    Jarralt turned on him, snarling. “Lay hands on me again and I’ll see you strung from a gibbet before sunrise!”
    Holze chimed in, parchment-gray with distress. “No, Conroyd, no, the boy’s right. You must control yourselves—this dreadful business—set an example—” The elderly cleric’s eyes were full of tears. Behind him the other Doranen lords dithered, paralyzed by protocol and surprise, “His Highness is overwrought, he spoke out of grief and shock, you can’t think he’d believe that you— that
anyone-
—would deliberately harm our king and his family! And you, Conroyd, you spoke unthinking too. This terrible tragedy—we are all of us in dreadful disarray. Your Highness—”
    The crimson glow around Gar was fading fast. His face had emptied too, of fury, of passion, leaving only pain. He looked confused. Bewildered. “My lords—I don’t—I feel—” An enormous shudder racked him head to foot, and he blanched dead white. “Barl help me,” he murmured as his eyes rolled back in his head.
    Asher leapt and caught him before he thudded to the road. “Gar!”
    The prince was a sprawling dead weight, he had to let him go, let him sag to the ground despite his wounds and broken bone.
    “His Highness shouldn’t be here,” Asher said to Holze as the cleric knelt and took Gar’s unharmed wrist to chafe. “He needs to go home.”
    “He needs a good physicking first,” said Holze, and looked about him. “Conroyd … ?”
    Without a word, Jarralt came forward. Dropped to one knee, slipped his arms beneath Gar and stood easily, the prince cradled against his chest.
    “Into the carriage with him, Conroyd,” said Holze, regaining his feet with Asher’s help. “He must be seen by Nix as soon as possible. The rest of us will have to make do in one of the wagons. I’m sure the experience won’t kill us.” Realizing what he’d said, he flinched.
    “You ain’t goin’ back with him?” said Asher, surprised.
    Holze shook his head. “No, no. There are things to do here first. A shrine. A prayer candle. I brought all the