Free The New World by Michael A. Stackpole

sat. He rolled his shoulders around and felt a series of pops ripple up his spine. He groaned, and she smiled as she fed a small stick into the fire.
    “Keles, you really must let me carry something when we head out again.”
    “You are carrying enough, Princess.”
    The blond woman stroked a hand over her stomach. “Yes, I know, the future of Helosunde—a child to unite my nation with Deseirion.”
    “It doesn’t matter whose child it is. It’s enough that you’re carrying a child.” Keles looked around at the others preparing their shelters and lowered his voice. “And you are the leader of our expedition. These people are loyal to you, not to Deseirion.”
    Golden firelight could not melt the ice of her blue eyes. “They are my husband’s subjects. He had them so cowed they would follow me to the Mountains of Ice and through the Gate to the Underworld. They are suspicious of everything here. They see themselves as enemies in a foreign land.”
    “Is that how you see yourself?”
    She snorted, anger tightening her eyes. “I should. The Council of Ministers chose my brother to be Prince, then convinced him to attack Meleswin. They abandoned him there, and Pyrust took me to wife and to bed. The only reason they will be happy to see me is to use me as leverage over Pyrust.”
    Keles laughed and she turned her cold stare on him. “You are amused by something?”
    “Just by how wrong they are. Anyone thinking you’re a means to an end is a fool—and that includes Prince Pyrust.”
    She looked a bit mollified by that, but Keles had already learned not to take too much comfort in appearances. Jasai had told him that, for her, he was also a means to an end. She had meant to use him to enable her escape from Deseirion. But her aunt had suggested that Jasai had grown to love him.
    I wonder what the reality is . He had no way of knowing, and no mind to trust any assumptions. In fact, he didn’t want to make assumptions because he was in love with Tyressa. Though he found Jasai desirable, Tyressa was even more so. But if Tyressa did not exist, if Jasai was not married to the Desei Prince and carrying his child . . .
    Too many ifs, and none of them real .
    For a heartbeat he wondered if he could change such things—make if into is . That would greatly reduce the complications in his life. But what shone gloriously for a moment became dark and twisted a second later. In many ways, his grandfather had used his will and influence to change the lives of those around him. He had even swapped Jorim’s fate with Keles’. In a fit of pique he’d exchanged their missions. Had his grandfather possessed true magic then, there was no doubt he would have used it to do that and worse.
    Keles frowned. Perhaps that was the problem with magic. When it came easily, the magician had no sense of consequence for his actions. Rekarafi said he’d improved the drainage in the clearing, yet the plants in the center preferred swampier soils.
    To dry the clearing I shifted a thousand cubic feet of water .
    From the lay of the land, it had drained off to the west and into a ravine. The trickle there would have become a small flood. The swollen stream would have boiled through the forest.
    Keles stopped imagining and began seeing . Further downstream the water undermined the support of a small stone bridge. The bridge began to crumble. Stones shifted and mortar cracked. The children playing on it froze. Angry water splashed high. One of them screamed . . .
    “No!” Keles thrust his hand into the water. He lifted the bridge, held it together. The children shrieked, but leaped to safety. The bridge’s stones tumbled into the raging stream, trickling like gravel through his unseen fingers.
    “Keles!”
    His eyes jerked open as Jasai slapped his hand aside. A shower of hot coals arced out and hissed against the moist ground. He shook his hand, then slapped at his smoldering bandages.
    “What were you doing?”
    “Um . . . ” He