Reawakening by Amy Rae Durreson Read Free Book Online Page B

love has gone.”
    Sethan rolled his eyes but simply said, “And that means?”
    “Alagard himself is vanquished or constrained.” Tarn thought a little further. There were methods that could control even the greatest nature spirits, but he was loath to share them. “Perhaps corrupted, so his love for the land is turned to disdain.”
    “Now he talks,” Ia grumbled. “What has the power to do that?”
    “A greater spirit,” Tarn admitted. He could have done it himself, but he wanted to win Alagard for his hoard, not enslave him.
    “How does this fit into the larger mess?” Ia asked.
    “I’m not sure yet,” Sethan murmured, leaning over his maps. “I’ve never heard of anything like this.”
    “We say that a lot,” Cayl observed. “Tea, Tarn?”
    “Aye,” Tarn said. “The larger mess?”
    Cayl passed him a mug and asked, “Have any of the company gossips told you how Sethan and I met?”
    “Not yet.”
    “I was a lawman,” Cayl began reminiscently, “up in the foothills of the Astarans, on the River Seil. Barges were passing through the village and then vanishing before they reached the next trading post. I investigated and could find no natural cause. I was out of ideas when this pretty young bookseller came in with the next barge, boasting about all the arcane lore he’d learned from his books. I persuaded him to help me solve the problem.” His smile faded.
    “Which we did, naturally,” Sethan said, reaching out to squeeze his lover’s hand. “It was a nixie prince, suddenly roused to fury and objecting to human freight on his river. We survived the experience—”
    “Not without cost,” Cayl murmured.
    “We survived,” Sethan repeated, lifting Cayl’s hand to his lips. “The experience made me take notice, however, of how many similar stories were arising.”
    “So they investigated,” Ia said. “Being a lawman and a nosy bastard, as they are.”
    “The elementals had been dormant or disinterested for centuries,” Sethan explained. “Now they are awakening, but not all at once. We mapped it, with Ia’s help, and found our source.”
    “The reawakening began in Tiallat twenty years ago, about the time the Savattin got kicked over the border. It spread steadily from there.”
    Ia snorted. “Causing absolute fucking chaos. Human society isn’t equipped for that level of magical intervention. Maybe back during the Dragon Wars we could cope, but we’re too set in new ways now.”
    Tarn nodded agreement. He had been walking through the new world for months now, and he still barely understood it. He and his kindred had always been considered the most intelligent of the great spirits. If he could not adjust, how violently must those lesser elementals be reacting?
    “And you?” he asked. “Who are you, with your battle room and your cunning plans?”
    “More or less what we seem,” Cayl said. “A lawman, a caravan master, and a merc. We just have other friends, powerful, worried friends, in Shara and Hirah and all across the land below the mountains.”
    “I have this dreadful fear, you see,” Sethan said idly, “that all this is happening for a reason, and that reason is to be found in Tiallat.”
    Tarn was disappointed. Curling his lip, he muttered, “Spies.” It had never been his favorite part of war.
    “Partly,” Ia said. “No one really knows what’s happening over there. I reckon you know the value of good intelligence, being who you are.”
    “I?” Tarn said.
    “Ia has a theory about you,” Sethan said. “It’s so outlandish it may even be true.”
    “We reckon,” Cayl continued, “that there really was a dragon flying over Tarenburg in the spring.”
    “It fits my projections,” Sethan said, waving at his maps. “This wave of reawakening should have reached Amel by now.”
    “And here you are,” Ia said, “straight out of Amel with your ancient armor and no knowledge of anything except the Dragon Wars.”
    “And don’t forget his frightfully