Silver Mage (Book 2) Read Free Page B

It was overcast with only small streams of light peeking through. It was nearing full winter and Bren was anticipating the first snowfall. On the coast, it rarely got a large snowfall, and the few times it did, it turned to ice quickly. He had heard that the previous year there was so much snow in Torin that people had to make tunnels in the snow to get around the town. He was sure that the people were exaggerating, but he had to admit to himself that it would be a sight to see so much of the white powder in one place.
    Looking around, he noticed that most the houses were still mostly thatch, with more than a few places needing repair. They needed to be fixed, and quick, but that would take a number of laborers that the city just didn’t have. As he looked back to the inn turned palace, an idea struck him. He didn’t know if it would work, but it was worth a try, and it might even make some of the mages start to see the non-humans as real people. Not just tools for their use and abuse.
    Forgetting about Cass and the others, Bren rushed up to his room and grabbed the letter off his desk. He neatly folded it before placing it in a nice envelope. After picking out one of his better outfits, a nice dark set of leathers that was trimmed lightly in dark green and after checking himself out three times in the large mirror in his room to make sure he didn’t look too outlandish, Bren headed back downstairs where he found his guards preparing for breakfast. Not wanting to cause them to lose their first meal, Bren moved back to the kitchen where he found Lillian, as well as, many others working to ready all the needed food.
    “Do you require something my lord?” Lillian asked, noticing him as soon as he stepped through the door.
    “No, I was just going to let you know that I and the guards will be gone for the noon meal so that you wouldn’t prepare too much.”
    “That doesn’t matter, if we have any food left over, I am sure there are plenty of families that could put it to use,” Lillian said in an offhanded manner. “It is better to have too much, should you not return than too little, should you return earlier than expected.”
    “Whatever you think is best,” Bren replied, shaking his head. He knew better than to think she would take it easy. He didn’t know where she found the boundless energy to not only cook, but keep the place spotless as well. From what he had learned, the elves were nearly immortal and one of the longest lived races on Kurt, and they spent all of their time perfecting whatever they put their minds too. Whether it was cooking or mastering politics. Lillian had put it to her mind that she would not only be his personal maid, but in such a capacity that made her nearly irreplaceable. Giving the elf one final look, Bren wondered what he would do if something happened to her. Nothing good he was sure.
    While he waited for his guards to finish their meal, Bren busied himself with checking on the rest of the house workers, as well as, inspecting the current level of funds that had been accruing in their makeshift vault that was nothing more than a few iron walls and a large door with a secret lath that Crusher had devised. The dwarf assured him that only the most fool-minded thieves would try to steal from him, but Bren didn’t want to take any chances with the entire countries funds.
    Picking up the large ledger that sat next to a desk guarded by one of Flynn’s soldiers, Bren flipped through the pages until he reached the most recent entry. Two hundred gold coins for stone work on the palace. It wouldn’t start until after winter, but they had decided to pay half the cost up front to help the dwarven stone workers get the needed materials ready in time for the first snow melt after winter. That still left them with a little over twelve thousand gold in the vault, though most of that had come from his father’s elven estate.
    He had eased up on taxes hoping that the extra gold entering the human