The White Mists of Power Read Online Free PDF

would have thought that Byron the bard would have found Seymour the incompetent? The incompetent who had twice deceived the hounds. That magician had been faking his poor performances all along. Dakin remembered the feel of the ebony stick beneath his hands, the sheer force he had used as he smashed the thing into small pieces. The hounds had gone wild. He and his men had to use branches to keep the animals from ripping the ebony as if it were human flesh.
    Dakin passed the sculptured gardens, noting the gardeners hunched along the path, inspecting a plant that grew across the dirt. At least they were doing their jobs, and doing them well. He hated the incompetence, the arrogance, and all of the trouble he had had lately. He would love nothing more than to kill both the bard and the magician with his bare hands.
    His retainers would find the bard soon. Judging from the blood-soaked rags Dakin had found in the hut, the bard was in bad shape. He wouldn’t be moving very quickly even with his two-day head start.
    As Dakin approached the great house, he saw his personal secretary standing before the door. “What is it?” Dakin asked.
    “Milord,” the secretary said, dipping his head. The movement was always a sign of bad news, as if the man expected Dakin to unsheathe a sword and behead him immediately. “You were to meet the Lady Jelwra in Nadaluci this evening.”
    Dakin swore softly. The Lady Jelwra was not a person to ignore. She was after his southern lands for their river access. She had already taken the land from Lord Lafa that adjoined Dakin’s, claiming that it had belonged to her family for generations.
    “I would like a massage and a large meal. Send word to the stable to prepare a different stallion. I exhausted the last.”
    “Very good, sir.”
    No, it wasn’t very good. Dakin pushed past his secretary into the coolness of the hall. He had been planning to stop the Lady Jelwra from usurping Dakin land, but he hadn’t known how to go about it. Now he was riding into the meeting exhausted and angry, frustrated from a failed hunt.
    He would have to leave the bard until later. But when Dakin found him, he would kill him slowly and painfully. The hounds were too quick. Dakin would think of something that lasted much, much longer.
     
     

 
     
     
     
     
    Chapter 2
     
    Adric sat on a bench in the southeast corner of the courtyard. The sun shone light and thin over the palace’s high walls. If he squinted, he could see the spires of Anda beyond it.
    He had been waiting since dawn for Lord Boton. The lord had promised him a trip into the city–Adric’s first time ever outside palace lands–and had even showed him his father’s seal on the order. The trip felt like a consolation prize. All of the other things he had asked for since he had seen the Enos–a better education, the opportunity to watch his father and the Council work–had been met with blank stares and polite smiles. Lord Ewehl had said crossly that no prince before Adric had asked for anything. Adric had replied, equally as cross, that he planned to be different.
    The stone bench was cold, and his bottom had grown numb. He had flattened the grass separating the cobblestones with his feet. His fingernails were ragged from chipping at the mortar between the stones in the bench. He wondered how much longer he should wait. Perhaps he had had the day wrong. Perhaps Lord Boton had forgotten him.
    Adric stared at the palace walls around him. When he had first arrived at the courtyard, only a few maidservants and a handful of retainers stirred. The windows above him were dark, hinting that the entire palace slept. Now he saw movement through the windows across from him in the west wing, his parents’ wing.
    With his mother’s pregnancy, both of his parents had taken to sleeping late in the morning. Adric used to have breakfast with them. Now he didn’t see either of them until dinner time, if then. He spent his days reading in the palace’s