Highland Sorcerer Read Online Free Page A

clan stronger. ‘Tis a blessing that should
not go to waste."
    "Which would become a curse and well ye
know it. There’s too much darkness in ye."
    "Coward. The lot of ye. An entire clan
of cowards. Reach out and seize what's yours. I offer you
that."
    "Ye offer naught but madness and death
for all of Limont. We've seen this before. We know what happens to
those who take upon too much magic that isn't inherently their own.
Darkness, Aldreth, like the darkness that rides upon your
soul."
    "What ye call dark, I call
liberation."
    "Aye, the liberation of all
oaths."
    That hit a nerve. Aldreth yanked his
head back like a striking serpent. "Oaths are meant to be broken.
Think on that, sorcerer. My grandsire had the courage to challenge
the Fae and free the magic upon the land."
    "Magic that was given freely from those
he challenged. The Fae are right to have guardians to balance what
they have given. 'Tis an honorable oath and blessing bestowed upon
our kind. Your grandsire was mad to believe that magic has no need
of protectors."
    "Then protect magic. With me. Who
better suited than a daughter of Alduein blended with the son of
Limont?"
    Toren closed his eyes. A daughter of
the clan first deemed as magic protectors whose sorcerer chief
turned on the Fae as a hound turned on its master. 'Twas a
sorrowful day to all magic born when Burnes Alduein fell and the
entire clan was banished. And these centuries later, the wee
granddaughter returned grown to take back what she believed was
rightfully hers. A powerful witch in her own right, but her magic
was tainted. All could feel the underscore of darkness skimming
across her essence. Should Toren or any of his siblings join their
magic with hers, the scale between light and dark would be
unbalanced, throwing their world into an unimaginable night where
darkness overshadowed everything.
    He could not give her what she sought
without severing his oaths and dooming all earth magic to the
balance of darkness. The world would be overrun by creatures best
left skimming the shadows.
    "Nay, Aldreth, joining with you would
be the breaking of all I hold dear."
    She hissed and slammed his face into
the stone floor.
    She swung away and threw the dirty
plaid at him. "Then rot here until ye've changed yer
mind."
    Her clipped steps marched across the
floor just before the heavy wooden door creaked and banged shut,
splashing him in darkness.
     
     

Chapter Four
     
    "I can't believe it. One of the fabled
sorcerers of Limont came to you. In the flesh."
    "In nothing but his flesh." Charity
helped her sister haul the ancient tome down from the second
highest shelf. As self-appointed keeper of their family's
knowledge, Lenore's dining nook-turned-library was wall-to-wall
flea market book cases cramped with books, texts, even scrolls,
that museum curators would give their eyeteeth for.
    Together they carried the heavy tome
between them and laid it on the table that took up the center of
the room.
    "You sure it's in here?" Charity eyed
the large book dubiously.
    "Oh yeah, I remember reading about it
when I first convinced mom to let me look at the book."
    "You were ten."
    Lenore shrugged with one shoulder. "It
was a romantic story. An entire clan, every individual gifted with
some form of magic as long as they remained the protectors of
man…And then all of them vanished. Poof. The village must have
fallen to ruin because no one knows where it once was." She opened
the little ornately carved box she kept sitting on the table and
pulled out the white gloves she kept in there. Lenore was
meticulous about not letting the oils in her fingers damage any of
the ancient books.
    "That's so weird." Charity sat down and
leaned over the large velum pages that Lenore turned with delicate
reverence. "What does that even mean? Protectors of
man?"
    "Got me. Something about the innate
balance of magic. As long as the Limonts kept the dark side of
magic from overtaking the good, the entire land would prosper.
Magic would