Dagger's Point (Shadow series) Read Online Free Page A

bent, was far likelier to spend her time in the practice yard than poring over old books and scrolls, so Argent had turned the study attached to their rooms to his own use. Missing the herbal store which his sister Elaria now managed alone, Argent had created his own herbal workshop, where he could putter in his few free hours.
    Allanmere’s High Lord was as tall as his wife, but he was pale where she was sun-browned, slender where she was muscular, his features delicate where Donya’s were strong, his braid silver-white where Donya’s was almost as black as Shadow’s.
    At the moment Argent was grinding something pungent-smelling with a mortar and pestle while reading out of an ancient herbal. His sharp elven hearing, however, was not dulled by his concentration, and he looked up, smiling, as Jael stepped through the doorway.
    “Good afternoon, Jaellyn,” he said warmly. “Sit down for a moment. I’m almost finished.”
    Jael took her usual seat on the edge of the table. She loved to watch her father work; as his herbal preparations seldom involved magic, his workshop was one place where her presence didn’t invite disaster—as long as she didn’t move and send fifteen bottles and vials crashing to the floor, at least.
    Argent finished blending the paste in the mortar and scraped it carefully into a clay jar. He cleaned the mortar and pestle meticulously before he turned to face Jael.
    “How are you faring this spring?” he asked. “Your breathing doesn’t sound much better.”
    Jael shrugged in resignation. The fact that Argent could hear her raspy wheezing from that distance was answer enough. Argent understood, if Donya didn’t, that part of the reason Jael lost her wind so quickly was because breathing was difficult in the damp springtime air. Her eyes and nose ran like the Brightwater River, too, all spring long. She’d have some relief in summer, if the weather was dry and there weren’t too many flowers in bloom, but she’d be miserable again once the leaves fell and the autumn rains started.
    “I have two new mixtures for you to try,” Argent said. He handed her the jar he’d just filled and a flask filled with greenish liquid. “Put five drops of the potion in your goblet at suppertime and see how you feel this evening. Rub the paste on your chest tonight. It should help your breathing.” He handed her another jar. “And this is for the aches and pains your mother left you with today.”
    “Salve to ease my pains?” Jael chuckled. “And I thought she wanted me to ache at every step, just to remind me of my lessons. At least she didn’t bruise my bottom, not for want of trying.”
    “Your mother would rather see you bruised than dead, and so would I,” Argent said kindly. “If she’s a little zealous lately in that regard, it’s only because she loves you and worries about you so much. Sometimes it’s difficult for her to say those things with her mouth, so she tries to say them with her sword instead.”
    Jael sighed, again regretting her sharp remarks. It wasn’t as if anything Donya had said wasn’t true. Unlike Argent, however, Jael had no excess of patience to compensate for Donya’s occasionally sharp-edged manner.
    Argent picked up another bottle, this one half-filled with bright blue liquid of a rather syrupy consistency.
    “Were you planning to take any of this with you?”
    Jael hesitated, then nodded.
    “Two bottles, just for emergencies,” she said. “It’s either the Bluebright or that elven dreaming potion you made for me before, and that puts me to sleep for hours. I’m taking some of the Calidwyn black tea, too. It settles my stomach.”
    Argent nodded, sighing.
    “The Bluebright does seem to temporarily relieve many of your problems—allows you to use your Kresh stone-shaping ability, keeps you from warping magic around you—but I don’t like you using it,” he said slowly. “I haven’t been able to find out where it came from or what it’s made of,