Free The Prodigal Mage: Fisherman’s Children Book One by Karen Miller Page A

colour bad, the palsy dancing in his cheek. A fresh thin thread of spittle crept down his chin. Weakly he swiped at it, then weakly snapped his fingers for the damp cloth. Wouldn’t take help in cleaning himself, this time.
    “No… such thing?” he said, handing the cloth back. His clouded eyes couldn’t mask his temper, or the disgust he felt at his body’s slow decay. “Of course… there is, Asher. You never… lost that power. You just… lied and said… you did. For the… greater good, of course. Because Lur needed… to hear it. I always… knew better.” Blinking slowly, he pressed withered fingertips to the flickering muscle beneath his cheek’s lace-thin skin. “But what makes… you think now… our kingdom might need to hear otherwise? Is it the… uncertainty you’re feeling… in the sleeping… earth?”
    “What?” he said, choking. “How’d you know that? You ain’t—you said you felt nowt of Olken magic in your blood. Were
that
a lie, Darran? You been lyin’ to me?”
    “And if… I was?” Darran retorted, an echo of his younger, vigorous days sounding in his voice. “About myself? About something… so personal… and private? Whether or not… I was born gifted, is that any… business of… yours? I don’t think so. I think—” He broke off, coughing again, sunk too low for indignation.
    “Here, here, you ole crow,” he said, and helped Darran sip from a glass of water. “Best you stop flappin’ your lips now, I reckon. Best I leave you be, to rest.”
    Darran only swallowed twice, with awful difficulty, tiny mouthfuls, then turned his face away from the glass. Asher eased him back to his pillows, returned the glass to the nightstand and started to rise. But Darran’s hand stopped him, with a strength born of desperation.
    “I feel… nothing,” he said harshly, every indrawn breath a fight. “It was… Rafel. Rafel told me. He said the earth… feels wrong.”
    Rafel?
Asher sat again, thudding hard onto the chair. “My son told you that?”
You, and not me?
    “He’s… a boy,” said Darran, smiling. “Boys have… their secrets, Asher.” The smile faded. “And you’re… strict with him, you know. Over magic.”
    “If I am, I got to be!” he said, stung. “You know what Nix said of him, Darran. You know what it might mean.”
    “I know you’ve… never trusted your own… gift,” said Darran gently. “You never… wanted it. You resent it. You blame… magic for every… loss.”
    “Why shouldn’t I? Don’t you? Don’t you blame magic for who it killed?”
    “It wasn’t… the magic that… killed him, Asher,” said Darran sadly.
    Pricked to his feet, Asher stamped to the window and drew the heavy curtain aside. This side of the Tower looked out over the home field beside the stables; in the fast-falling dusk he caught the pearly gleam of Cygnet’s thick winter coat as the doddery horse, without a halter, followed Jed to the gate. Good ole Jed, as kindly as ever, grown more childish with the passing seasons. Not even Nix or Kerril could help that. The blow to his head all those years ago had damaged him in ways that could never be undone. Kerril said there’d come a time when Jed wouldn’t be safe around the horses. Kerril said there were a good chance his friend wouldn’t make old bones.
    Death, greedy and hovering, in here, out there, no escape. No reprieve. Rafel, keeping secrets. And now this old wound, reopened.
    Gar
.
    “I know what killed him, Darran,” he said harshly, keeping his back turned. “That were me. I killed him. Think I need you to tell me who I killed? I don’t. Don’t need you tellin’ me you hate me for it, neither.”
    “Hate you?” said Darran. “I don’t hate you. If there’s… any hating, Asher, you’re… doing it. You’re the one… who won’t forgive.”
    He turned. “What are you witterin’ about, you stupid ole fool? I don’t hate him! I never hated him. He were my friend.”
    “I know,” said