White Hall (The High King: A Tale of Alus Book 10) by Donald Wigboldy Read Free Book Online

seen.
    Iris smiled slightly even as Qeyr looked to redden with anger more than embarrassment. “I am not actually in the room alone. You forget the other wizards. There are eight of us in Delanne. Shelvy is my roommate and she is also a girl.”
    “A woman, actually, you are just a girl, Iris,” the older wizard stated with a smirk.
    Sighing, she replied, “Yes, master, Wizard Shelvy is certainly a woman not a girl. Pardon my assessment, but you don’t have to sleep in the same room as her.”
    The girl didn’t elaborate making the boy wonder what she had meant. Based off Qeyr’s continued smirk and a small chuckle at his apprentice’s expense, he had a feeling there was a story there which would remain between the two.
    Waving the boy to the door, Qeyr stated, “Come along, novice, no need to dally here all night. Dinner will be ready soon. Now that you are one of us, the kingdom gets to pay for your meals and room. Aren’t you lucky?”
    Herded back downstairs, Piotr wondered why they couldn’t have just left his pack downstairs until they were ready to rest for the night. His brother would be back in the morning with his possessions packed up like his younger brother for a trip to White Hall. Until then, he was on his own with the wizards. When one was Iris, he didn’t mind; but Wizard Qeyr was a little more difficult so far.
    Not wanting to just sit and be bored, since he couldn’t drink liquor at his age and didn’t want to start thinking of his future at the wizards’ school; Piotr walked to the door to sit on the porch. Qeyr frowned at the boy’s back, and gestured for Iris to keep an eye on him. Meanwhile, the wizard ordered a drink while he waited for the other search teams to return to see if they had fared any better.
    Sitting on the porch, Piotr noticed a dog. It appeared to be good natured and no one seemed to care that he lay in the street in front of the building across the way. A blacksmith, the sign declared, perhaps it was the man’s dog and simply staying outside of his shop. It was cool, but not quite cold thanks to the slowly setting sun. The evening was likely to be much colder the boy thought, but for now he could understand the dog’s lazy enjoyment of the warm light.
    Placing his hands in the form of a triangle, his attention focused on the dog. When his sight darkened for a moment, it was Piotr’s will that made the creature open its eyes and stand up. Looking both ways in the street, his vision came from much lower than his own. A couple men sat on the next porch over from the inn ignoring the dog’s path. A few more on horseback looked to be heading back out of town. Their clothing said they were farmers most likely in town on business.
    His nose sniffed the air and Piotr thought that the beginning of dinner time in Delanne was beginning as women, or whoever cooked in the household, started their stoves and prepared their ingredients. The dog’s keen nose could pick out the homes already starting to cook in surprising detail. The inn’s kitchen was most obvious as the animal moved to sit before him and slightly to the side.
    Under Piotr’s control, the dog looked at Iris hovering behind him near the door. The girl looked perplexed and with a little smirk, Piotr made the dog climb the two stairs to close the distance on the girl who pulled back looking a bit alarmed. She was apparently less comfortable with animals.
    “Shoo... shoo,” she waved at the dog with hands pulled in close to the girl’s chest.
    Clamping onto her skirt, the dog pulled her forward even as she complained for the animal to stop and let her go. She was too frightened by the dog’s strange activity to actually defend herself or stop its directing of her body.
    Stepping down each of the steps, the dog let go surprising the apprentice. Her feet against the lower step, Iris fell back and only Piotr’s reaching out with his right hand to steady her slowed the fall. Unfortunately, that meant he lost his