The Wayfarer King Read Online Free

endurance to get the entire crop cut, baled and threshed. She’d spent part of last year’s income on Henrik’s burial and hadn’t enough money left to hire labor. With a sigh, she dipped the quill into the ink pot and signed her name.
    “Very well,” he said. He wrote out a receipt and laid it on the dining table. “Your overdue tax debt is paid, and the next tax collection will be in three weeks. Good day.”
    She saw him to the door and watched the footman help him climb into his shiny black carriage, then take his position on the rear step. The driver pulled away, steered the four-horse team to the main road and back toward Saliria.
    “Are we going to lose the farm?” Trevick asked.
    Feanna closed the door and went to sit beside him on the worn, gray sofa. She lifted Tansa onto her lap and put her arm around Trevick’s shoulder. “Now, don’t you worry about that. I’ll have clients soon, and all will be well. You’ll see.”
    “I could work as a torcher in Saliria,” Trevick said. “I’m old enough.”
    “Perhaps,” she said. “Let’s see how my business does first.”
    “Could I?” Iriel asked hopefully. Her smile was lopsided, with one incisor missing and the other half grown in. “I’m almost nine.”
    Feanna’s heart ached. The children worked hard around the house as it was. That they would be so willing to take on extra work both touched her and troubled her. “When you’re twelve, we’ll talk, hm? Let’s get supper started, shall we?”
    She kissed Trevick’s forehead before he could squirm away, set Tansa down, and went to the kitchen. She opened the cold box and noted the ice was nearly melted. “We’ll need to go to town tomorrow for a new block of ice.”
    Someone knocked at the door, startling them all. Living outside of Saliria in a small farming community, they didn’t often receive visitors. If it were Liera Kinshield or one of her boys, they’d have called out already. “Who’s calling?” she asked.
    “Sorry for disturbing you, m’lady. I’m Adro Fiendsbane.”
    The name was unfamiliar. Perhaps he was a new customer, someone in need of her special skill. Someone looking for a lost loved one. His name definitely sounded like an epithet, though. Feanna hoped it wasn’t another battler come to drop his bastard child off with her, hoping she would relieve him of his fatherly burden. Whatever would move a man to do such a thing was incomprehensible, but she’d already turned away two of them this year. After the day she’d had, Feanna wasn’t sure she could be tactful. She went to the door and opened it, prepared for the worst.
    A battler stood on the stoop, holding in his arms a girl who appeared about four years old. Her blond hair and brown eyes matched those of the swordsman, and she clung to him, trembling. He wore a brown shirt, whose long sleeves were out of place in the warm spring afternoon. His long hair flowed across his shoulders. Around his neck hung a leather thong, disappearing into his tunic, suggesting a warrant tag hung ready to display on request. “Good evening. I’m Adro, and this is Jilly. Are you Feanna Vetrin?”
    Feanna sighed. She knew it. If the child hadn’t been in his arms, she would have filled his ears with thorns. The poor thing must have felt so unwanted, faced with being abandoned to a stranger by her father. “If you’re thinking to leave your daughter here while you gallivant across the countryside without a care in the world, you’re mistaken.” She shifted and put a hand on the soft skin of Jilly’s arm.
    Feanna was overcome with profound sadness. Lost and terribly alone, she felt the world had ended, yet she went on, unloved and unwanted. The pain in her chest was crushing. She gasped and yanked her hand back, unable to stop the sobs that burst from her. Tears spilled from her eyes.
    “My lady!” Adro said, reaching to steady her. “What’s wrong? Are you ill?”
    She held up a finger as she hid her face and