Well of the Damned by K.C. May Read Free Book Online

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reminded him of the destruction it brought, the lives that were lost,
and his inability to do a damned thing about it. The work building up
the riverbank had brought sleep more quickly than usual. “Well,”
he said. “You?”
    “Not
badly.” Edan nodded to Daia Saberheart as she strode in and
took her seat to Gavin’s left. “Though I stayed up too
late reading.”
    “Again,”
Daia added with a grin. Her hair, tied in a long braid that
perpetually trailed down her back, was still damp from her morning
practice in the training yard. She wore the loose-fitting trousers
and half-sleeved tunic that had become the customary uniform of his
guards since he’d adopted blue and gold as the royal colors.
They hid her bulging muscles well, though one could plainly see by
the thickness of her neck and her corded forearms she was lean and
strong, despite her natural beauty. She flashed her remarkably
pale-blue eyes at Gavin. “Good morning, my king. Edan.”
    “And
to you,” Edan said. “I’ve been making good progress
getting through the pile of messages.” Starting almost the very
day the palace was unlocked, messages had begun to pour in —
requests for aid, congratulations from people he’d saved or
helped over the years, offers from parents for infant daughters to
wed any princes Gavin might soon father.
    At first, Edan had tried to read
them all as they arrived, but the king’s demands on his time
required him to hire an assistant, who’d separated the messages
into two stacks, one marked urgent and the other trivial. Though the
rate of their arrival had slowed somewhat, new messages arrived every
day, along with invitations and gifts as gestures of goodwill from
the leaders of foreign lands, some of which Gavin had never heard of.
One day, he would need to begin inviting them to visit or accepting
their invitations to travel, but he had many problems to solve and
people to care for before he could entertain or enjoy a vacation. For
now, all he could manage was a polite reply, penned with Edan’s
help, of course.
    “Anything
I should know about?” Gavin asked.
    “The
Master Scholar from the Tern Institute of Science reports he has men
who specialize in studying weather, and they’ve determined that
the cloud patterns and continuous rain are unlikely to be naturally
caused.”
    Gavin
turned to him with a scowl. “Are you saying this rain is caused
by magic?”
    “That’s
what they’re suggesting. I’ve never heard of such a
thing. Have you?”
    Gavin
shook his head, troubled by the notion. If it were caused by someone,
then whom? And why? Did Thendylath have a foreign enemy that planned
an attack? Flooding rains would be one way to wear down its target.
“We got to find out who’s doing it.”
    “Do
you have ears in the city?” Daia asked.
    “What
do you mean?” Gavin asked.
    “My
father has people all over Thendylath — merchants, craftsmen,
even whores — agents who report rumors they hear. He pays them
depending on how valuable the information is.”
    “Might
the Lordover Tern be willing to share his information?” Edan
asked.
    Daia
snorted. “That depends on what he can get in return, aside from
the king’s goodwill.”
    “Let’s
send a message,” Gavin said. “Ask him.”
    Edan
pulled out a clean sheet of paper from his stack. “Consider it
done.”
    In
the distance, the bell in the temple tower clanged nine times,
marking the beginning of another long day. Two guards, women who had
trained and served in the now-disbanded Viragon Sisterhood, went to
the double doors and waited for Gavin’s nod. The metal locks
clanged, the bars were lifted, and the doors scraped open on squeaky
hinges. A sense of dread settled on his already weary shoulders.
    People
who had been waiting in the rain for hours, perhaps overnight,
bustled into the room, eager for a chance to plead their need to the
king. Most were poor, judging from their lack of a rain cloak and the
stained and threadbare