Glamour of the God-Touched Read Online Free Page B

say. He should have known better than to accept
power without understanding its price.
    But it had been Arianna.
    Arianna.
    Was it only a few hours ago he had asked if
she would have him? All he had really wanted was to be worthy of
someone like her, someone beautiful and with a real family and real
roots. She was everything he had never had. Now he was
terrified.
    Tears welled inside him.
    The truth of that word struck him: terrified .
    A few hours ago he had actually been
confident, but now everything was too big.
    “Go away,” he said. “Please, just go
away.”
    Villagers shouted in the distance, and the
oily aroma of burning torches wafted closer. The yapping of dogs
echoed through the woods. He had to get away—had to get rid of this
magic, whatever it was.
    He clenched his fists while he listened to
the villagers clamoring for his head.
    Alistair.
    He needed to go to his superior mage.
    Alistair would understand. He would be mad,
of course, but his superior would know what to do, and any
punishment Alistair would mete would be better than dealing with
this on his own.
    Garrick turned and once again ran through
the woods.

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     

Chapter 5

     
    As he ran, Garrick became one with the forest,
forgetting about the boy, forgetting about the pull of life force
at Arianna’s cabin, forgetting about the expression on her face in
the tavern.
    He felt alive and in the moment.
    The boy’s life force was pure and buoyant.
It made him stronger. It made him free to race, free to duck under
sycamore branches and leap over downed trunks.
    The sounds of villagers faded into the
nighttime.
    It was a long distance to Alistair’s manor,
but he ran the entire way, pushing through brush like a bolted
deer. Sweat rolled from his body and his breathing became hard, but
still he ran. Smells of liverwort and mushrooms swirled in his
wake, and the calls of animals echoed in the distance as he neared
the manor. He leapt over a row of thicket, thinking about Alistair,
thinking about how his superior would set this right and how then
Garrick could start all over again. He thought these thoughts over
as he ran.
    Alistair would help him.
    Alistair would know what to do.
    He thought them once again as he crested the
final hill that led to his home.
    It was only then that Garrick came to a
stunned halt.
     
    The manor smoldered in the moonlight, its stone
surface reflecting a silver sheen against the black sky. A curtain
of gray smoke rose like mist to obscure the splintered fences that
had once circled the stables.
    The horses were gone.
    “Alistair?” he called as he walked
forward.
    Charred grass crackled as Garrick crossed
the manor yard, its burnt reek laying heavy over the grounds. The
odor of magic ripped at his throat—a bloody essence laced with
metallic ammonia. Koradictine sorcery, he thought, his memory
flashing to the mage at the Ladle.
    Could this be revenge of some sort?
    Could the mage he soaked have done this?
    The front door hung from a hinge like a page
half torn from a journal. The foyer was dark as he stepped through.
The boy’s energy surged inside him, responding to imagined threats.
He quelled it, drew his dagger, and stepped farther into the
building.
    The hallway walls were charred. Melted
remains of candles dripped over their scorched sconces. The stone
floor was cracked and littered with debris. He and Kelvin had
cleaned these stones just last week. He remembered Kelvin grumbling
as he scrubbed. Garrick was the oldest of the apprentices, then
came Balti, Kelvin, and Bryce. Little Jonathan, at six, was the
youngest. He had arrived just this winter.
    Where were they?
    He stepped farther down the hall.
    Once his eyes settled, Garrick realized he
could see as well as if it were daytime. The boy’s energy, he
thought, or rather, this strange magic he carried now—this
curse—how much had it changed him?
    “Alistair?” he called again. “Balti?”
    The reek of sorcery grew