The Sleeping Life (Eferum Book 2) Read Online Free PDF

It's the weak-minded and the impatient who kill themselves."
    "Do they try and get you to take students too?"
    "Not yet—they know I'm far behind Ren."
    "The way people act about Rennyn's way of casting, I don't know if they'd give up just because she said no to more students."
    He laughed, and pulled out a kerchief to pile all the smaller jewellery in. "Good luck getting Ren to do anything she doesn't want to, now that Solace is gone."
    Two months ago Kendall would have agreed wholeheartedly. But the Rennyn who had lost all her massive magical strength, and who got too tired to stand up, was a different prospect. Especially now it was so important to her to protect the Kellian. The Rennyn Claire who pranced around doing whatever she wanted was a thing of the past.
     

CHAPTER THREE
     
    "Lady Rennyn."
    Rennyn blinked, and realised she'd been asleep. This happened too frequently for her to be surprised, but it annoyed her to be caught unaware. Wondering how long the Queen had been in the room, she gathered herself to stand and curtsey, since it wouldn't do to start out being offensive.
    "No, don't rise," said the Queen, holding out a belaying hand as she sat opposite. This was to be a private audience, ostensibly to discuss the Surclere Duchy, and while the Queen seemed withdrawn she at least wasn't going to stand on ceremony. Astranelle Montjuste was a blond woman of nearly seventy years, though of course she was able to afford an attendant mage to lengthen her life and preserve an appearance of youth. She looked delicate and sweet, and it was difficult to match her to her reputation of cold competence until you heard her unexpectedly resonant and commanding voice. "The healers have informed me that you have not recovered as you should."
    "No," Rennyn agreed, with a wry thought for the visit she'd made to the Sentene's Senior Healer yesterday. Of course she would report to the Queen. "Your Majesty knows that my—Prince Helecho—attempted a Symbolic casting on me. It would have made me a slave of sorts, but he used the removal of my focus as a symbol of that casting, and because he had not at that time discovered my true focus, the spell went awry."
    Queen Astranelle nodded. She had witnessed the Eferum-Get prince, Rennyn's very distant relative, attempting the casting, and would have felt the power warping away from the original intent. "So it slows, but does not prevent your recovery?"
    "Yes and no. The focus was a symbol of my strength, and instead of subsuming my will, the miscasting sapped my physical resilience. Bones that should have been whole by now are only partially knit." And still made their presence felt when she coughed or laughed or lay on her side. "They will heal eventually, just as the bruises went, and the wound. But…the spell is still there, and like most Symbolic castings, is not going to be easy to shift. So I have little endurance, I'm at great risk of disease, and the toll casting places on me…" Rennyn shrugged. "There is a measure of physical exertion in casting, and it exhausts me quickly."
    The Queen considered this while a swarm of servants swept in to lay out spiced tea and a collection of intriguing little cakes. Rennyn liked trying new sweets, and wondered if she could take one of each without looking more interested in eating than talking. Having staved off a private audience this long, it would probably set the wrong tone.
    Queen Astranelle had too many reasons not to like Rennyn as it was. Although Rennyn's ancestor, King Tiandel, had abdicated his throne three hundred years ago, there were some in Tyrland who had suggested that Rennyn was Tyrland's true Queen. Fomenting mischief. It wouldn't lead anywhere, but it was an annoyance to a Queen already less than impressed by Rennyn's failure to keep her informed about anything during the crisis of Solace's attempted return. Secrecy had been necessary, but she could have at least attempted not to act like Queen Astranelle was entirely