The Dreaming Hunt Read Free Page A

contain the otherwise wild and uncontrollable high magics.
    â€œOnce I draw forth the magic from the items on the table, I will begin adding my own magical energies to it. That is when you will start adding your magic to the ritual, Raina.”
    â€œYes, High Matriarch,” Raina murmured dutifully, privately amused. As if she didn’t know how this worked. She’d been casting high magic since she was a child. She might only be sixteen, but her home in Tyrel seemed a lifetime away. She missed them, her bossy older sister, her little brothers and father, even her domineering mother, who had ultimately driven her to run away from home.
    A prickle of energy passed over her skin as the spirit circle activated, adding its energies to the shell around them. Will glanced over at her, and she smiled reassuringly at him. He returned the smile, but the expression did not reach his eyes. She saw his fingers squeeze Rosana’s.
    She secretly envied them their young love. It had always been her fondest wish to marry and have a family, but joining the White Heart had pretty much made that impossible. Her childhood sweetheart was still in Tyrel, but she was expected to go wherever the Heart sent her, healing whenever and wherever her skill was needed. It would be hard to settle and have a family while roaming the width and breadth of a continent the size of Haelos.
    â€œLet the magic flow into you as it builds, Will,” Lenora murmured.
    He looked as if he sincerely tried to do so. But all of a sudden, the ritual magics were twisting and writhing wildly, whipping around all of them like the tails of angry cats. Not all the circles were activated yet! Would the existing circle magics be enough to contain whatever was going wrong inside them?
    Will clawed at the disk upon his chest with his fingernails, even though he knew full well that he could not pry it off his skin. “Bloodroot,” he gasped. “Stop this ritual.”
    â€œWe risk a backlash if we stop it now,” Rosana replied nervously.
    â€œHe doesn’t want the spirit shard removed. He’s fighting it,” Will panted, obviously in searing pain. “This isn’t right.”
    â€œHeal him,” Lenora ordered Raina, her concentration fully upon the magics she was trying and failing to corral and calm.
    It was too dangerous to use common magic inside a shell of ritual magic, so Raina made do with spreading a healing salve on Will’s chest just where the disk attached, its red scars streaking outward from the disk more angrily than usual.
    Understanding broke over her as rage flowed out of the disk and into her fingertips as bright and strong as the magics flailing around their heads. “Bloodroot does not wish for this ritual to continue. He wants the shard of Rosana’s spirit to stay where it is.”
    â€œI would have my healer whole,” Lenora snapped.
    She didn’t think Bloodroot gave a care for Rosana’s wholeness or for the high matriarch’s desires, which meant this ritual was doomed to failure before it barely got started. All that remained to be seen now was how bad the backlash would be.

 
    CHAPTER
    2
    Gregor Beltane, landsgrave of Lochnar, huddled on the hard bench in the prow of the rowboat as two of his most trusted men rowed him across the great lake to the island that marked the center of his land holdings. The oars dipped into the black water silently with only thin trickles of dripping water marking their rhythmic lifts from the water.
    A muted rumble of thunder in the west announced that more rain would be forthcoming momentarily.
    It had been a while since he’d made this secret journey. With Anton Constantine ousted and replaced by Lady Syreena Wingblade, he’d been forced to stay in Dupree for weeks to get a read on the new political environment of the colony.
    This was a good night to check on the hidden tower. The miserable weather assured that no one would be abroad