The Wizard's Heir Read Free Page A

angry about. Now you live in the lap of luxury while others starve.”
    Auriella roughly skewered the second rabbit.
    “I meant you as Hunters,” he hurriedly corrected, “not you specifically.”
    Auriella scoffed and placed her rabbit over the flames. “You meant me just as specifically as you meant anyone. Despite what you think, not much has changed for me.” She stuck her second rabbit over the fire and stood, wiping her bloody hands on her pants. Without another glance Auriella leapt, swung around a branch, and settled onto her sleeping platform.
    Tybolt sighed. He glanced up to find the wizard’s blue eyes still watching him through the slats in the wood. He returned to his carving, mulling over the wizard’s strange lack of fear and Auriella’s ever-growing list of confusing comments that she refused to expound upon.
    Tired of running himself in mental circles, he gave his full attention to the tiny bear in his hand. He focused on each movement of his knife, ensuring every line of fur was so meticulously cut that the bear would take on a life-like appearance.
    He’d carved the image of his mother and sister once, but he’d left them behind in the woods because they were too painful to look at. Tybolt was so engrossed in his work that he failed to notice the rabbits had passed done some time ago.
    Feet hit the ground behind him. Tybolt yelped in surprise.
    “Was that your plan to get me out of the tree?” Auriella demanded, yanking the skewers out of the fire. “Burn dinner so I would be forced to come retrieve it?”
    He dropped his carving to the ground and jerked the other two rabbits out. He poked at the blackened skin. “Blast.” There would be no moist rabbit with dripping fat tonight. In its place they’d be having shoe leather. “Sorry.”
    “For what? Telling me I had nothing to be mad about, or burning dinner?” She sat down across from him and, with some effort, tore off a chunk of charred rabbit.
    “Burning dinner.”
    Auriella huffed in aggravation, muttering something about demon spawn.
     

     
    Tybolt lay on his sleeping platform in the trees and stared up at the stars through the pine canopy. He shifted to the side to relieve the pain from a knot that was digging into his back—just as it had last night. He was sore, tired, filthy, and looking forward to a bed and a hot bath.
    A breeze picked up and blew strands of dark hair across his face. He closed his eyes and breathed in. The smell of pine was thick, overlaid with the scent of the ocean and rain. He sat straight up. Rain .
    He leapt to his feet and climbed. The bark was rough and flaked off in pieces as he pulled himself up. The higher he climbed, the thinner the branches became. He took his time, carefully placing his hands and feet until he could go no higher. Straightening, he wrapped one arm around the nearest branch for stability and looked over the pointy tops of the trees to the west.
    Inky storm clouds painted the horizon and blocked out the stars. Lightning flashed, illuminating the ocean for a moment before the distant rumble of thunder confirmed the incoming storm.
    The clouds moved closer and Tybolt held his breath, daring to hope, but the storm hit an invisible wall. The clouds smashed against it and billowed upwards. His heart dropped.
    “No,” he whispered. The clouds hung there in the distance, climbing upwards before they slid sideways and headed south. The life-giving storm wrapped around the horn of this rocky island they called home and moved back out to sea.
    After the Fracture the storms had still come inland, watering the broken and parched earth and allowing the farmers to replant and recover from the complete loss. The storms were few, as they’d been in the days before the wizards had interfered and brought unnatural amounts of water to this desolate rock of an island, but they’d come…until three years ago.
    The storms that now rolled in, taunting them with needed moisture, were not wizard-made.