Free Highmage's Plight (Highmage’s Plight Series Book 1) by D.H. Aire

out.”
    “Did he say cut it out?” Ryff worriedly asked. “Cut what out?”
    Bal said, “I think you’d better hurry, Gee-orj.”
    “Uh, right. Here goes.”
    “What’s he doing?!” the boy’s father bellowed as Me’oh and Fri’il gasped.
    George brought down the blade and—
    BOOM!
    It wailed. The wagon quaked, knocking everyone standing off their feet except George, who seemed rooted. Vyss woke screaming an eerie, unearthly howl as Me’oh and Fri’il fought to hold him down.
    The dark blade drew blood as George’s staff flared to incandescence. BOOM! again.
    The wagon wheels collapsed and a foul smelly smoke made them all cough as it poured off the boy’s body.
    The next thing George knew he heard the boy’s father shouting, “Vyss! What’s happened to Vyss!”
    Hands were pulling back the canvas roofing as George and Balfour coughed.
Me’oh muttered, “By all the Lords of Cathart, what has happened?!”
    George gasped, using his staff to help him push aside the blankets, assorted vials of herbal remedies, and the teapot that had fallen across him. “One demon excised,” he groaned. “I hope.”
    The teenage girl was waving smoke away from her face when Vyss coughed, “Fri’il?”
    She stared at him, “M’lord?”
    “Fri’il, I’m cold.” The boy tried to sit up. “Hey, I’m not wearing any clothes!”
    There was a sudden silence.
    “Vyss?”
    “Poppa?”
    “Vyss! See to him, I’m fine! Hear that, De’ohr, my boy’s alive!”
    “Well, Gee-orj, at least they don’t want to kill us.”
    “That’s most definitely an improvement,” George said with a chuckle as he washed his face in a cold water basin the ladies had provided.
    They had been given a rather fine looking tent as the Cathartans readied a celebratory feast in their and young Lord Vyss’s honor.
    “M’lords,” Fri’il said from the doorway. “If you would, we would wash your garments.”
    “You think you can wash the demon stink off them?” George asked.
    She smiled, “It seems to come out with soap rather nicely. In the meantime, I’ve brought you some of Sire Ryff’s extra robes.”
    They were beautiful, George thought, a cross between an ancient Japanese kimono and a silk garment similar to a skirt, though styled for men.
    “Thank you,” Balfour said.
    “Just set your clothes to be cleaned out here and I’ll be back for them.”
    They nodded as she left, the George said, “Well, Bal, feel like a surgeon yet?”
    His elfblooded companion laughed, “Not your normal surgery.”
    “No,” the archaeologist replied, wondering just what he’d gotten himself into.
     
    “You can’t be serious, Father!” Se’and shouted.
    “They saved your brother’s life. I can do no less!”
    The Mother Shaman intervened, “You must do more, Sire.”
    “What?” Lord Ryff said, frowning.
    “They’ve made the Prophecy possible again! You must do more than make them Cathartan Lords.”
    Se’and reiterated, “You can’t!”
    Her father sat back, “Se’and, De’ohr’s right. This is a matter of honor. I’m sorry, but there is no other way.”
    “I’m not marrying him!”
     
    Dinner was a truly magnificent affair. Young women performed songs, dances, and acrobatics. Cle’or was featured with the dance of knives, tossing daggers in the air like a juggler, while executing precise katas, as those in the eastern part of earth. She bowed as Sire Ryff slapped George’s back.
    “She is my House’s finest champion!”
    “Wonderful,” he said.
    Sire Ryff glanced at his older half sister and nodded. She made a mental note.
    Se’and personally served George a choice piece of the game they’d recently taken. She wasn’t smiling, which earned her a glare from her father. So she bowed rather invitingly to George, who found himself hastily needing to look up into the young woman’s eyes.
    “Uh, thank you, but I don’t eat meat.”
    She frowned, “Do you prefer fish or cheese?”
    “Cheese is fine, but I