Target Of The Orders (Book 3) Read Free

don't know. I’ve been thinking about it all night, but I admit I have no idea how it goes together.
    “Add the fact that Braxidane has triggered my first barrier—which means I am now also a full-blooded mage—and you’ve got a puzzle that’s bigger than I can comprehend.”
    Darien did an actual double-take. “You have a god as a superior?”
    “Braxidane is no god.”
    “What is he, then?”
    “He is a planewalker—simple as that, one of the creatures that live in the spaces between the planes. That makes Braxidane powerful, but it does not make him a god.”
    “Does the difference matter?”
    “It does to me.”
    An awkward silence rose.
    Garrick shaded his eyes and scanned for scouts. “Why are they not hunting us?” he said.
    “Let’s not be upset by good fortune.”
    Garrick chuckled. He was surprised to find he felt better.
    “Regardless of anything else, Darien, this means you need to be careful around me. Braxidane’s magic has a will of its own. As my reserves fall, the beast gets hungry. I can calm it, but after a point I will lose control.”
    “I thought as much.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Do you think you’re particularly cunning about that?”
    Garrick reddened with the accusation. “Yet you’ve stayed around?”
    “There is something about you, Garrick. I felt it the moment I met you. Using sorcery at a gaming table is not a normal thing to do.”
    “I told you, I didn’t—”
    “Don’t lie to me, Garrick. I smelled it. Your spell work was unmistakable.”
    “I was healing the man next to me,” Garrick snapped.
    “Healing?”
    “Yes, healing.”
    Darien broke out in an obnoxious guffaw that dredged up memories of young boys who poked fun at him as they trudged to their studies and he went off to the stables.
    “Healing? At a gaming table? You may be a full mage by power, but only an apprentice would be idiotic enough to use magic at a gaming table and not try to fix the odds.”
    “I’m not stupid.”
    “I’m sorry,” Darien said, still grinning.
    “You don’t know what it’s like to be broken, do you, Darien? You don’t know what it’s like to be without?” His anger spilled over him then, and he let it roll off his lips. “You know exactly who you are. You know who your father is. You know what your brother did. You have an entire history behind you, and yet you despair over something as trivial as whether you will rate against that same brother. But, let me tell you about not rating, Darien. Let me tell you about not having anyone to turn to, about growing up away from your mother because your baron owed coins to a sorcerer, or about cleaning stalls, or about not letting yourself grow close to anyone because you’re just going to leave again soon.”
    It felt good to say these things out loud for once.
    It felt freeing.
    It gave him a new sense of power.
    “I’m sorry,” Darien said softly. “I didn’t know.”
    “Of course you didn’t.”
    Garrick nodded then, gathering himself together as his anger wound down.
    “It’s all right,” he said to Darien. “I just needed you to know.”
    Darien's beard bristled at his chin as he pursed his lips. They rode in silence for several minutes before coming to an opening that led to the opposite side of the range.
    “This way,” Darien said, pointing.
    “About time,” Garrick replied.
    He wiped his brow and guided his to follow his friend into the pass.

    They emerged several hours later on the eastern side of the mountains. It was cooler here, and green everywhere. It smelled of the forest, of peat, leaves, and wet rain. He had forgotten how much he liked the color of trees.
    They made camp in a copse of sycamore and elm. Darien built a fire that warmed them, and they cooked the quail that Darien had taken shortly after they stopped. Garrick ate for taste and companionship rather than for hunger, though he had to admit the bird was delicious.
    “It feels good to be out of the desert,” Garrick