Wayfinder by C. E. Murphy Read Free Book Online

husk behind. I’ve never seen it before, not even in the oldest among us. Healers could, or would, do nothing to help.”
    Emyr snarled, “They refused—?”
    Ioan’s voice cooled further. “They refused an enemy prince, if that’s what happened. Some did try, of that I’m certain, but they could do nothing. The living power in him was so ruined that I don’t know how he continued to breathe. I kept him for weeks. Months, hoping the land itself would help him regain his strength. But in the end all that was keeping him alive was the healers, and their gifts were needed elsewhere.”
    Lara focused on her horse’s shoulder. The hair there was brown and gold, shifting subtly as the animal breathed. It was a small thing, normal, and helped her move past the fear chilling her blood so she could speak. “And?”
    “And so I brought him to the Drowned Lands,” Ioan said softly. “To the waters that—”
    Anything more he might have said was lost to the crash of metal against flesh. Something ripped loose inside Lara, as if the fabric of power she’d woven had suddenly been shredded by an unexpected force. Her chest hurt, air gone from her lungs. She barely turned her head in time to see Emyr smash a second fist at Ioan, the compulsion that had held him frozen now broken.
    The broader man caught it with a grunt, trembling muscles visible beneath the wet silken fabric plastered to them. Blood welled along his cheekbone where Emyr’s first blow had landed, but his voice remained calm and soft. “To the waters that my people believe to be restorative. There is the potential of a hundred steads there, all the life that might have been, had they not drowned. The waters are rich with power. I could think of no other way to save Dafydd’s life. My lady Truthseeker, call off this dog before I am forced to drown it.”
    Lara muttered, “The dog isn’t mine to call,” but added, more sharply, “Emyr, leave him alone.”
    Tension left Emyr’s arm almost instantly, his body obeying even as his mind resisted. Ioan released him and backed away, water pouring from his clothes as he left the pool. Within seconds he was dry and tidy, as though the ruckus had never happened. Lara closed her mouth with a click and looked elsewhere to keep herself from staring. It didn’t work: in an instant she was gaping at the Unseelie king again, though she knew he would regard the magic he’d just called to be little more than a parlor trick. “What’s the problem with having sent Dafydd to the Drowned Lands to recover?”
    Aerin sighed and nudged her horse a single step forward, calling attention to herself. Lara had a sudden impression of the white-haired woman’s life, always standing second to a king and his family, always there to answer the questions that needed answering but which royal pride refused to acknowledge. “They’re the waters Rhiannondrowned in, Lara. They might be restorative to the Unseelie, but the Seelie regard them as deadly. Sending Dafydd there is tantamount to an execution.”
    “Don’t be absurd. We’re not separate races, one born of starlight and the other bred of earth. We’re one people, divided by a schism older than memory. What heals one will heal the other.” Ioan looked as though he’d had this argument a dozen times before.
    “You are no part of us,” Emyr snapped. “You’re earth-grubbing, dank-loving fishermen and farmers, and we are—”
    “You are my father,” Ioan reminded him. “Or had you forgotten that, Emyr? I’m the child you engendered. An earth-grubbing, dank-loving stoneworker and king.”
    “And what have you done with the king before you?”
    “Hafgan? Like Dafydd, he has returned to the Drowned Lands.” Ioan’s voice dropped. “Were his stories true, Father? Did you drown the Unseelie lands and uproot a people?”
    “I owe you no answers.”
    “
I
want an answer.” Lara stepped forward, anger rising in her again. She had lost time and now Dafydd to the