White Hall (The High King: A Tale of Alus Book 10) Read Online Free Page B

accepted to the school, Katya would become a novice. Southwall clothed their wizards, soldiers and mages as well as offered a stipend to their families for the inconvenience of taking their children away to put them into service. Until she was twenty one, the girl would be given a nominal allowance to use for herself, but the rest would go to her family as her brother’s service had been paid to her father for the last several years.
    Some of the clothes in her bag were paid for by that stipend after her father gave Sebastian half of the money back when he took her away to see the tournament. Her power had already gone out of control in a smaller way then and scared her parents into letting her brother take her away, but her father refused to make her a burden and had returned much of his son’s money back to him to pay her way.
    The room was surprisingly small as she followed Darius inside. A full size bed that could hold two people occupied much of the space with just one side table and an armoire for the remaining furniture. Even those few pieces filled the room close to the point of feeling crowded.
    “It isn’t large, but it is just for one night,” the silver haired wizard stated with a smile. To look at Darius, one might think he was old thanks to the color of his hair. Katya looked at his face seeing no lines of age; but the wizard wasn’t young, or using his magic to continue to look youthful. According to her brother and the others with him, Darius was in fact one of a rare group of men known as immortals.
    While Darius had assured them that the word was an exaggeration, he was close to seven hundred years old.
    “It’s bigger than my room back home,” Katya judged the space as she placed one pack on the bed and Darius dropped the other beside the armoire.
    Darius looked at the girl and she felt like he was doing more than giving her a simple glance. She thought that his eyes seemed to glow a bit and the wizard closed the door.
    “I had better check the seal on your magic again. It has been two days, and I need to make sure the spell is holding properly,” he informed the girl.
    It wasn’t exactly news to her. Darius had been forced to shut down her magical abilities after an incident only a few days ago. She had lost control and her magic had made more than thirty men and women suddenly attack her brother and her, simply because she hadn’t wanted to be left behind and had become upset enough that her magic had lashed out. Even wizards and battle mages weren’t safe. Only her brother had managed to slip his mind free with a spell before she could affect him as well.
    Then Darius had come to their rescue shutting off her power until only a little trickle was allowed to exist outside of the spell’s control.
    His hands were placed on either of her temples as he felt for his magic. Darius was so skilled that he was still able to carry a conversation meant to ease the girl as he worked. “We want to make sure to leave your magic a little room to breathe, but not so much that we have a repeat of the other day. Once we get you to White Hall, I believe that they will assign a specific mentor to maintain the controls until you get the hang of it all.”
    “So you all tell me,” the girl replied with a roll of her eyes towards the door. Katya hoped to be able to go downstairs. While she was enjoying standing which kept the pain of her rear a little at bay, the girl wanted to go speak to the fire wizard she had recognized. It wasn’t hard to believe that she would know him by sight, since Magnus was the wizard who had won the tournament and had been in parades and celebrations near her for several days.
    Darius gave a sympathetic smile to the girl despite her sarcasm. “I’m sorry, but sometimes that is how it has to be.
    “You are a remarkably powerful young wizard, but you have no control and if your particular abilities get out of hand...”
    “...other people will suffer. I understand, Master