Spellweaver Read Online Free

journey made with her own poor self cast over a horse’s withers where her head had apparently bounced quite enthusiastically against its shoulder. She hadn’t blamed her very unmagical captors for setting her rather ungently against a tree, nor had she faulted them for tying her wrists and ankles together. How else could they have kept her where she was meant to stay? But there were others she could most certainly blame for the events leading up to her sitting where she was, freezing, and blame them she would.
    Better that than the alternative of giving in to the fear that threatened to steal her breath. She wasn’t sure how much longer she could bear the darkness, and the things that lurked in the darkness—
    She let out her breath slowly and tried to think about something else, anything else. Unfortunately, there was little else on which to fix her thoughts, given that the twisting path that had led her to where she was at present had begun with darkness.
    There she’d been, innocently planning to shake Doìre’s dust off the hem of her cloak, when she’d become embroiled in a bit of do-gooding she’d thought she could manage. It was only as she’d stood in the great hall of the keep at Ceangail that she’d learned how unyielding and merciless the world of magic could be, how awful mages with terrible spells could become, and just how far out of her depth she was.
    If that had been all, she supposed she would have been justified in her loathing of all things magical, but there had been more. The final blow had been discovering that a man she had unbent enough to actually have a few fond feelings for had not been a simple swordsman as he’d led her to believe, but instead Ruithneadh of Ceangail, youngest son of one of the most vile black mages in the history of the Nine Kingdoms.
    She didn’t trust easily, but there had been moments over the past month where she had actually looked at Ruith and felt herself lower her sword, as it were. It had been poorly done. She would tell him that just as soon as she could get close enough to him to do so. The traders wouldn’t have been foolish enough to tie him next to her, which meant he was most likely tied to some other sturdy tree.
    She opened her eyes a slit. The traders were standing there in the middle of the glade, warming their hands against a fire and speaking in a language she didn’t understand. They didn’t have blades in their hands, which meant they had obviously secured Ruith as well if they were that at ease. She looked around her as unobtrusively as possible, fully expecting to see Ruith trussed up securely across the glade.
    But he wasn’t.
    She forced herself to breathe evenly in spite of her rising panic. There was no reason to assume anything untoward had happened to him. Just because she couldn’t see him didn’t mean he was dead. He might have been picketed with the horses, or deemed to be too heavy a burden and left behind. There were a myriad of things that could have befallen him.
    Things he could easily have countered.
    That thought was a brisk slap. The truth was, he had lied to her, led her to places she never would have gone even in her nightmares ... and he had continued to lie to her and take her to horrible places until they’d wound up in the worst place of all where he’d only admitted who he was because he hadn’t had a choice. What made all of it so galling was that at any time, he could have stopped it. He, the son of an elven princess and a mage full of untold power, could have saved her grief, fear, and danger if he’d simply been willing to use his magic.
    Which he hadn’t been.
    She turned away from any concern she might have felt for him. He would save himself, if saving could be done, but he would do nothing for her. That much was obvious, given where she found herself. All she could do was get herself free, then take herself somewhere safe. She would then lock the door and hide in obscurity where she would no longer