WinterMaejic Read Online Free Page B

the arena. Xyla seized Breyard and disappeared—to Stychs as I learned later—and came back for Traz and me, and flew us all to safety.
    “You worry.” Xyla’s voice intruded on my thoughts. I hadn’t noticed her eyes open. Now she was watching me.
    “Yes, I am worried.” I walked over and leaned against her. For the first time, it occurred to me that she could swallow me whole if she were so inclined. I’d seen that just about happen in the one fight I’d watched between a dragon and a man. I instantly tried to blot that image from my mind, before Xyla could pick it up. No point in distressing her.
    “You worry too much. What is wrong now?”
    I knew I shouldn’t tell her, but I really couldn’t hide it from her. “The king’s men are coming. I’m afraid they’re going to attack.” I took a breath to try to steady myself and keep from breaking into a panic. “Oh, Xyla, the Royal Guard are coming after me again. Why can’t I just be left in peace? Why is everyone always hunting me down?”
    I could almost hear her mental sigh. “It is not you they seek. And we are safe. They cannot find us here.”
    “How can you be so sure? Even Yallick is worried; he’s called the council together.”
    “Then they shall decide what is to be done. There is nothing for you to worry about.”
    “That’s easy for you to say. You don’t have Yallick trying to drive all kinds of knowledge into your head.” Which wasn’t quite true or fair, but the thought of seeing the Royal Guard in their purple and scarlet uniforms sent shivers down my spine. Once I’d thought they looked handsome; now just a glimpse of those colors terrified me. And made me say things I didn’t really mean.
    “I thought you wished to learn from Yallick,” Xyla said, her voice sounding a little confused.
    “Oh, I do. I guess. It’s just that . . .” What exactly was it that was bothering me? “He seems to think,” I said slowly, trying to put my vague feelings into words, “that there’s something special about me, as if there’s a task I have to do. I mean, I’m just me. What special thing could I ever do?”
    “No one knows what they can do until they have to do it. You know that. And you have already done something special. Because of you, Breyard is still alive.”
    I sighed. “Yeah, that’s true. But still, I wish Yallick wasn’t so . . . so . . . intense. He kind of scares me sometimes.”
    “Yallick is a good man.”
    I snorted. “He might be a good man, but he isn’t always a nice one.”
    “He has had . . . disappointments.”
    There was, quite simply, nothing I could say in reply to that. I decided instead to try to return to the original topic of conversation.
    “I’m afraid we’re going to have to leave here.”
    “But where would we go?” Xyla seemed honestly perplexed.
    “I don’t know. But Xyla, if the Royal Guard try to capture you, promise me something, won’t you?”
    “What?”
    “Promise that you’ll get away. Go back to Stychs if that’s the only way to escape. Please.”
    “Donavah, I cannot go to Stychs.”
    “Why ever not? I mean, if that’s what you have to do. It’s better than getting recaptured.”
    “I cannot go to Stychs,” she repeated. “I am pregnant.”

    I watch her and wonder: what could have been were I not too old, were she not too young. It is not that I never wished to marry. No, only that I never found the right woman with whom to wed and to bear my seed.
    The rearing of children is hard—hard and unpredictable—and I do not believe that I regret having escaped the trouble of it. And yet . . . and yet.
    Donavah is mine neither to wed nor to rear. Rather, it seems to be meant that I am to teach her, teach her well and truly, so that she can fulfill her destiny.
    This is not an insignificant task. Indeed, it will surely effect a change on the entire world order.
    I accept my fate.

I burst into Yallick’s cottage, and the group of mages turned and stared at me. The man