Mage's Blood (The Moontide Quartet) by David Hair Read Free Book Online Page A

Cera, dutiful eldest daughter, remained deep in prayer.
    Elena’s colleagues, Rutt Sordell and Samir Taguine, lounged beside the door, neither bothering to look interested. They were Koreworshippers, and didn’t mind who they offended in reminding people. She found both obnoxious and was glad to be apart from them. Three guardsmen were there too, two young men standing at the door while their captain knelt beside Elena, praying softly. Lorenzo di Kestria had a mop of short curls and a roughly handsome face. He’d arrived a few months ago, a younger son of an allied family, and Olfuss had given him a place among his knights. His violet tunic was dishevelled but clean and he smelled of cloves and cinnamon. He met Elena’s glance and smiled.
    She looked away. She liked Lorenzo, but she did not want – could not afford – entanglements. Especially not now.
Wear your gems
…
    ‘Father Sol, we pray unto you,’ intoned Drui Prato. ‘Sister Luna, we pray unto you. Bring us whole through this festival of Samhain. Ward us these winter nights, harbour the seeds of spring. Light our paths, we pray you.’ Elena fidgeted, as bad as Timori. The peaceful phrases, the drui’s concerns with the seasons and their cycles, failed to calm her. They were out of place here where the seasons were wrong – praying for protection from winter when here in Javon it was the growing season was just absurd. Even so, she would miss this. No one openly worshipped Sol and Luna back in Yuros any more. The Kore had been imposed everywhere; other faiths were heretical, dangerous.
    The little ritual ended with a sip of wine and a dab of ash and water applied to their foreheads by the old drui. Outside the chapel they gathered, Lorenzo hovering solicitously, but Elena knew how to cold-shoulder men without offending them. Cera sidled up and kissed her cheek. ‘Buona Samhain, Ella.’ Cera’s deep brown eyes caught the torchlight. ‘Your hair is wet! Have you bathed and exercised already? Don’t you know this is a holiday?’
    ‘I exercise every day, Cera. You look lovely this morning. And so do you Solinde,’ she added to the younger sister, who simpered, her eyes on Lorenzo. She was growing up too quickly, that one.
    ‘There’re going to be lots of dancing tomorrow,’ Solinde said eagerly, watching the knight.
    Lorenzo smiled at her, but his eyes went back to Elena. ‘Do you dance, milady?’
    Elena crooked an eyebrow. ‘No.’
    ‘I’m going to dance with all the knights,’ Solinde announced grandly, piqued at Lorenzo’s interest being elsewhere.
    ‘Even the flatfooted, ugly ones?’ asked Cera slyly.
    ‘Just the handsome ones,’ Solinde replied. ‘Like Fernando Tolidi.’
    ‘Ugh,’ said Cera, ‘you can’t dance with him – he’s a Gorgio.’
    ‘So? I think he’s handsome. And Father said it was time to welcome the Gorgio back to the royal bosom.’
    ‘The royal bosom doesn’t mean
your
one,’ Cera quipped. ‘Anyway, he looks like a horse.’
    Timori pushed in between the girls and clutched Elena’s leg. As she lifted him effortlessly onto her shoulders she noticed Rutt Sordell whispering some sneering remark in Samir Taguine’s ear as they strolled off down the dimly lit hall together. Sordell, the only pure-blood magus on the team, was officially head of this assignment, though Samir, a three-quarter-blood, was the most formidable thanks to his Fire-gnosis affinity.
I wonder what message Gurvon sent them?
    ‘Donna Elena?’ King Olfuss called to her. ‘Do you have a moment?’
    ‘At your service, sire,’ she said, passing Timori to Lorenzo.
    ‘Don’t keep my husband long, Ella,’ said Queen Fadah, fondly. ‘Breakfast awaits, and we have many guests today.’
    The Nesti family twirled about each other in a complicated dance as they followed the two Rondian magi up the hallway. Elena watched them go, a smile playing about her lips, until Olfuss put a hand on her shoulder and drew her back into the chapel. The