The Crown of Stones: Magic-Price Read Online Free PDF Page B

shoulder. I figured she was unconsciousness, or just sulking. I was wrong on both counts. Sloshing eagerly though a stream so deep it swallowed her thigh-high boots clear to the cuff; Taren was free of her ropes and coming toward me.
    “That was fast,” I said warily. “How’d you manage it?”
    Taren stopped. She raised her right hand, displaying a ring on her second finger. The stone was large and red. The gleam it was giving off was far too brilliant to be natural. “Magic?” I heaved a sigh. “So that’s how you stayed ahead of me all those months? That’s what’s been going on with your eyes and your voice?” I ran a hand over my face, nodding at what perfect sense it made. “There’s been a spell on me this whole time? Making me follow you, making me—”
    “Passive? Compliant? Chatty, even?” She nodded. “Now you get it.”
    My teeth ground in anger. My hand went to the sword at my hip. I came close to drawing the one at my back, but I wanted a hand free to wring her neck. “Who gave you the ring?”
    The stone she wore pulsed. Taren opened her mouth and worked her jaw back and forth a few times, as if she’d forgotten how to use it. When she spoke, a low, dark, decidedly masculine voice overrode hers. “I will see it now,” the voice said.
    Shit
. I tightened my grip on the sword. “See what?”
    Swirls of red crept across the brown in Taren’s eyes. “I will see you on your knees.” Her ringed finger pointed at me and a wisp of something sharp crackled in the air.
    “Wait…” I said.
    Energy surged across the small space between us.
    “Taren—stop!” I cried.
    It smacked into me and I was suddenly on the ground, on all fours, with icy hot tendrils streaming out of the obsidian shard.
    They sunk down into me and I looked up at Taren. “What have you done?”

FOUR
    “W ell?” The man speaking through Taren Roe sounded pleased. “How does it feel to be free?”
    Vibrations filled my veins, painful and invigorating. Energy stroked my nerves. I could barely answer. “Free…?” I shuddered.
    “Using shame to suppress your magic, shackling your body with grief…your condition, Troy, your sentence of slavery, is a purely self-inflicted one. And now, I’ve remedied that. I’ve broken your bonds and set you free.”
    “No, this can’t be.” My breath was ragged, my mouth dry. “I didn’t call to the stone. I didn’t pull it in.” Frantically, I dug my hands in the sludge, clenching my fists, trying in vain to stop shaking. “You’re not …Taren. You’re Shinree.”
    “Obviously.” Taren’s long legs lifted high up out of the water and she came closer. “It’s a little more challenging to be attacked by one of your own kind, isn’t it?”
    “Glamour spell,” I wheezed out. “You’re using glamour to wear her body.”
    “Close. But I’m not wearing it. I’m controlling it. Though controlling you is far more amusing.” Taren gestured with the ring again and a surge of throbbing heat sped through me.
    “Gods...” Wincing, struggling not to like it, I shook my head. “You can’t do this. You can’t make me cast.”
    “I’m pushing magic into you. Is it so hard to believe that I can pull it back out?”
    “Don’t.
Please
,” I begged. “You have to stop.”
    “I’ve found the perfect weapon to use against you, Troy. Why would I stop? Forcing you to channel magic when you have struggled to stay clean of it every day for ten years…it’s foolproof. It’s far more lasting than wounding you with a sword. And I need only strike once. One hit, one spell, is all I need to break you.”
    I pulled my hands in closer. Thick, black strings of mire clung to me as I pressed my palms down, gritted my teeth and forced myself up. “Why are you doing this?” I demanded. “I have no quarrel with any of our kind.”
    “Quarrel?” he laughed. “I’m not your enemy. I’m your savior. I’m here to show you that magic isn’t a flaw to be hidden. It’s a