The Sorceress of Belmair Read Online Free PDF Page A

white rose, and offered it to her.
    Cinnia glared at the rose, and it withered and disappeared in a puff of smoke.
    “Surely you do not mean to make a puerile attempt to woo me?” she said scornfully.
    “Considering that we do not know one another yet are wed, aye, I was attempting to make a small effort on your behalf,” Dillon responded. And he held out his hand to her. From his fingers hung a beautiful necklace of green stones that matched her eyes.
    Cinnia sniffed, pointed a finger and the necklace shattered into dust.
    A kitten appeared in his outstretched palm.
    She hissed, and it turned into a writhing viper.
    Dillon flung the viper into the air, and they were showered with a burst of pink snowflakes.
    Cinnia laughed aloud and he grinned back at her. Then she grew solemn. “It isn’t you, my lord. I am simply angry at this turn of events.”
    “You wished to be queen of Belmair in your own right,” Dillon said quietly.
    “Yes!”
    “But tradition dictates Belmair be ruled only by a king,” he continued.
    Cinnia nodded. “It isn’t fair! I am the sorceress of Belmair, and I would be a good queen to my people. There were no males available from the ducal families, and then Nidhug said I must marry a Hetarian and he would be the new king. Hetarians are an anathema on Belmair.”
    “Why?” Dillon asked her, and he drew her down onto the dais’s steps where they might sit comfortably while they spoke.
    “Aeons ago, those we now call Hetarians were citizens of Belmair,” Cinnia began.
    “But certain of them grew overly proud. They began to question our traditions and the authority of the king. They wanted to make changes that went against our ways. The king then, his name was Flann, gathered up the troublemakers one spring night. They were placed in an enormous bubble and sent to your world, which is the star we call Hetar. This history is taught to every child born here. Bad children are threatened by their mothers who tell them that they will end up on Hetar if they do not behave.”
    Dillon laughed. “You cannot know how terrible a threat that is,” he told her.
    “You are not of Hetarian blood?” Cinnia asked.
    “I have some of their blood through my mother’s father, but then he also had faerie blood,” Dillon answered her. “I was raised in the Outlands and in Terah until I was twelve. Then I was sent to Kaliq for my training. I did not know until a little while ago that he was my father. I was raised to believe that Vartan, lord of the Fiacre, was my father. Even my own mother does not know the truth. I barely remember Vartan, but I have had a good stepfather in the Dominus of Terah, Magnus Hauk. And my mother is an incredible woman. She has great powers.”
    “What will she think when your father tells her where you are, what you are to be and that you have a wife who is a sorceress?” Cinnia wanted to know.
    “At first she will be angry that Kaliq planned this without consulting her. But she will be far angrier when she learns the truth of my paternity,” Dillon said with a smile. “My mother has been cursed, or blessed if you will, with a destiny that is not yet fulfilled. It has taken her many places. She has had great adventures, and done marvelous things. But she does not like being at the mercy of a greater power. Did you?”
    “No, I did not,” Cinnia admitted.
    “I find your tale of how Hetarians came to be rather interesting, for that is not at all the story told on Hetar,” Dillon said.
    “We know they have forgotten this world. It was meant that they forget. We did not want them returning to cause havoc once again,” Cinnia said. “But tell me what they say of their beginnings.” She shifted against him, stretching herself briefly.
    “It is said Hetar was once a world of clouds and fog. That the Shadow Princes came from those mists, and for generations mated with the faerie races they found there. When the day came that the clouds evaporated and Hetar was visible to