His Father's Eyes - eARC Read Online Free Page A

an hour.
    It had been a scorching day—July in Phoenix; go figure—and it was still hot in the house. But the night had cooled off considerably, as nights in the desert often did, and so I opened every window and changed into gym shorts and a T-shirt.
    “Namid,” I said, pitching my voice to carry over some distance. I probably could have whispered it and he would have shown up just as soon, but I liked to maintain the illusion that I had some small measure of privacy.
    Within seconds, he began to materialize before me, shimmering with the light of my reading lamps like the surface of a mountain lake reflecting the moon.
    In life, Namid had belonged to the K’ya’na-Kwe clan of the A’shiwi or Zuni nation—the water people, as they were known. His clan was extinct now, and had been for centuries. I didn’t know if Namid’s appearance was his way of honoring their memory, or if it was simply the natural, or perhaps magical, manifestation of his tribal heritage. Whatever its origins, Namid always appeared to me as a being made entirely of water. He had the build of a warrior: tall, broad-shouldered, lean, muscular. On this night he was as clear as a woodland stream and as smooth as the ocean at dawn, but one could read his moods in the texture of his liquid form the way a ship’s captain might gauge the weather by watching the sea. His eyes were the single exception: They always glowed, like white flames within his luminous waters. I would never have said as much to him—I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction—but he was the most beautiful creature I had ever seen.
    “Ohanko. It is late. You should be asleep, and I should not be summoned at such an hour.”
    He was also the most infuriating.
    He’d been calling me “Ohanko,” which, as far as I could tell, meant “reckless one,” for so long that I couldn’t remember when he had started. And he had been talking to me as if he were my mother, telling me when to sleep and what to eat, for even longer.
    “I’m sorry I called for you,” I said, “But I can’t sleep yet. I need some answers first.”
    He regarded me for the span of a heartbeat before sinking to the floor and staring up at me, those gleaming eyes seeming to ask why the hell I was still standing. I sat opposite him.
    “You conjured tonight.”
    “Yes, I did. But that’s not—”
    “What spells did you cast?”
    Did I mention that he could be infuriating?
    “I used a seeing spell—”
    “Using the techniques we have discussed?”
    “Yes, and—”
    “Did it work?”
    “Yes, it worked fine.”
    “Good. What else?”
    “I cast a couple of . . . well, I call them fist spells.”
    His watery brow furrowed. “Fist spells,” he repeated, his voice a low rumble, like the rush of distant headwaters.
    “They act like a punch, but I can cast them from a distance.”
    He nodded. “Crude, but effective. What else?”
    “A camouflage spell,” I said. As impatient as I was to discuss other matters, I couldn’t keep a hint of pride from creeping into my voice.
    Namid’s eyebrows—such as they were—went up a fraction of an inch. “That is high magic, Ohanko. Your casting was successful.”
    “Yeah, it worked great. That is, until I tripped over an empty beer bottle.”
    His expression flattened. “Have I not told you that you must tread like the fox, that you must act at all times with great care?”
    “You’ve told me,” I said. “And I try. This time . . .” I shrugged. “What can I say? I screwed up.”
    “You are fortunate that your carelessness did not carry a greater cost.”
    I’m a grown man—thirty-three years old. My mom has been dead for close to twenty years, and my dad has been crazy for almost as long. In many ways, Namid was the closest thing to a parent that I had, and his scoldings still stung like cold rain. But at that moment, his disapproval was the least of my concerns.
    “So you weren’t aware of all this,” I said. “You didn’t see me cast