Heir of Stone (The Cloudmages #3) by S. L. Farrell Read Free Book Online

bushy white eyebrows. He sat on the ledge of one of the windows of his office, like a beam of sunshine caught and hardened. He glanced at Jenna, and Sevei thought she saw more than simple respect for the Banrion in his eyes. The two of them caught each other’s gaze, holding it for a moment . . . then Jenna was staring at Sevei, her mouth twisted in a small half smile as if she were amused.
    The Banrion sat in Máister Kirwan’s padded leather chair behind his desk; she looked tiny there, her body hunched over with the inner pain Sevei knew bothered her more and more with each year. Sevei’s mam had tried to ease Jenna’s physical discomfort with Treoraí’s Heart, her own stone, a few years ago, but Jenna’s affliction was beyond the scope of the Healer Ard’s magic— “It’s Lámh Shábhála, Mam,” Meriel had said. “There’s nothing I can do for you.” A scent of spice lingered around Jenna, coming from the mug of kala bark tea in front of her. In the four years since Sevei had been fostered out—first to Dún Kiil and then to Inishfeirm to learn the mage-craft—she’d rarely seen her great-mam without some sign of discomfort twisting the lines of her face, making her look far older than her nearly five double-hands of age. Jenna used kala bark often, and, it was rumored, other more powerful and dangerous painkillers. Rumors also said that she rarely used Lámh Shábhála at all anymore, because the agony of wielding it was more than she could bear. Sevei only knew that she’d never actually seen Gram use Lámh Shábhála.
    Jenna took a swallow of the tea, grimaced, and set it back down on the desk with a sharp clack that nearly made Sevei jump.
    “No, you’re not a child,” Jenna said, her voice still strong and vital, even if her body was not. Her mouth tightened, dozens of small lines appearing around it. “Mundy—that is, Máister Kirwan—tells me that you’ve been swimming with the seals since the month of Brightflower.”
    Sevei felt her face color. She heard Máister Kirwan shift on his window ledge in a rustle of heavy cloth, but she didn’t look at him. “Aye, Gram,” she answered, knowing it was useless to lie. “It was just after the Festival of Fómhar. I thought . . . I mean I know about you . . .” She ducked her head. “. . . about our family, and I wondered, and I heard the seals one night and went down to the beach . . .”
    “I allowed her to go, Jenna,” Máister Kirwan interrupted. “I could have warded the doors, but that didn’t stop your daughter when she was here, and I know it wouldn’t have stopped you. You Aoires are extraordinarily stubborn.” He sniffed loudly.
    Jenna’s mouth relaxed and she laughed, a crystalline sound that made Sevei relax slightly. “I knew you held the Saimhóir blood when I first saw you, child. I knew the sea would call you as it did me and your mam, even as I knew it would never call to Kayne. Was it the Saimhóir you swam with?” Jenna asked, and Sevei shook her head.
    She had always imagined swimming with the Saimhóir whose lineage flowed in her veins: the great blue seals who could speak and use magic, whose fur sparked in the sun, but she’d never seen them, though families of them were reputed to come to the shore of Inishfeirm from time to time. Sometimes she even saw them, in the way that she sometimes saw Kayne or her mam. The whispers were that both Jenna and her own mam had once had lovers among the Saimhóir, and Sevei wondered at what that must be like. She’d wondered about that quite a lot, especially since she and Dillon had become intimate. “No, not the blues, Gram, just the normal browns.”
    Jenna closed her eyes. Whatever was in her mind pursed her mouth again, as if she tasted something sour. “The Saimhóir don’t trust the earth-snared changelings, not anymore,” she said, and her eyes opened. “They certainly don’t trust our family.” Sevei nodded solemnly at that and Jenna seemed amused. “So