The Castrofax Read Free Page A

east, and the nearest main road skirted around them
to avoid the forest. As far as Gabriel was concerned, the manor was
the safest place to be. Of course, everyone knew Castle Jaden was
safer with the thousands of wards and Mages to contend with.
    Gabriel followed the feminine voices down the
long hall, passing between the beams of sunlight breaking through
the clouds. Each burst of light threw bright reflections of his
white blouse against the walls. He squinted through each window,
unable to avoid the beams. The plump woman had a unique, boisterous
laugh, and he followed it to the threshold of a door where servants
bustled by.
    “Tea, Master Gabriel?” a woman asked as she
glided up with a tray full of cups and dishes.
    “No, Haddie, thank you.” She bowed her head
and slipped inside.
    The room was one of the finest Urima boasted,
with rich furnishings, a large hearth, and enough space to dance.
The older woman stood in the center pointing and instructing where
things went as Cordis circled around her, insisting she should rest
and stating supper would be ready soon. “Honestly, Professor, my
cook has nearly lost her fingers twice chopping vegetables for this
event.” The woman hardly cracked a smile as she twirled a servant
around and pointed him towards the dressing chamber.
    “Professor, where would you like this?”
Gabriel asked as he walked in. She stopped to survey him with a
calculating gaze and smiled with a pinched expression. Her
old-fashioned, pressed garb and the absence of gilt other than the
silver chain gave him the impression of a woman who rarely enjoyed
herself and sought the solace of tradition.
    “Lady Mage Aisling told me much of you, young
man,” she said with a husky, respectable voice that offered no
love. “It seems she did not do you justice.” She folded her arms,
and the tension went out of the room as if she had sheathed
weapons. “She informed me you were showing progress in the Element
of Earth.”
    He was not sure if it was a question, but he
nodded, “Yes, Professor.”
    “I hope it impresses me. We will be observing
the Mages in depth as soon as we are settled, and you will make an
excellent case study.”
    He hid the uncomfortable sneer his lips tried
to skew. “The package, Professor?”
    “Ah, yes. It goes in the sitting room,” she
said pointing down the little hall that adjoined the chambers. His
relief was palpable as he exhaled obnoxiously. He pitied his father
before pitying himself. ‘A case study?’
    In the small sitting room, Gabriel found
Haddie pouring tea for the golden-headed creature in gray. Robyn
cast her eyes down at the table, looking like a bird with broken
wings.
    “I think I’ll have that tea, Haddie,” Gabriel
whispered as he stepped in and set the package down. Robyn raised
her eyes as he seated himself across from her in a handsomely worn
crimson chair. The room smelled like parchment and old fabric, with
the mellow aroma of cinnamon and apple from the tea. The servant
quickly finished doctoring his tea the way he liked and slipped
out.
    Robyn picked her tea up holding his gaze as
he reclined back in the chair, his long legs thrown out and crossed
before him.
    “You’re not happy to be here, are you?” he
asked, though it was more a statement.
    She screwed her lips as if humoring him and
took a sip of her tea, casting her gaze outside the window. “You
are rather stupid if you think I am.”
    “I lost my own mother,” he stated, leaving
his tea untouched. “I never knew her, or really anything of her.
Father doesn’t speak of her, but I know the absence of a
mother.”
    Robyn’s lips thinned and trembled and hid
them behind her tea cup. Gabriel once heard royalty never cried,
and Balien proved so in the two years spent with them. Robyn
lowered her cup to reveal a sturdy expression. “I am sure I will
enjoy it here.”
    “It’s boring. There’s not much to do besides
grow things and learn histories.”
    “I enjoy my histories,”