Free Found by Sarah Prineas Page B

my head and handed her Mud-brown’s reins. “I could wait for you,” I said, backing up a step toward the spell-line.
    Rowan nibbled her lip. “No, I don’t think you can.” She stood up in her stirrups and called over her shoulder. “Argent!”
    Argent rode back to us. “Yes, Lady Rowan?”
    Rowan pointed at me. “Conn can’t come along. You’ll have to stay here with him.”
    “Lady Rowan!” Argent protested.
    She gave me her sideways smile. “I suspect that as soon as we’re gone he’ll jump back into the spell, and we’ll spend the next four days trying to catch up to him.”
    She was probably right.
    “That would be four days without him,” Argent muttered. “We should just let him do it, if he wants to. Or tie him to a tree until we return.”
    Rowan gave him her most duchess’s-daughterly smile. “Oh, I don’t think we’ll do that. You’ll stay with Conn. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
    Argent tried to tell her she wouldn’t be safe going to a city alone, but since she had her sword and was better at swordcraft than he was, he lost that part of the argument. I left them to it, heading back toward the spell-line.
    Before I reached it, Argent caught up to me, riding his tall black horse and leading Mud-brown bythe reins. Without speaking we went back to the place where the spell-line cut across the road, a wide clearing in the middle of straight, dark pine trees. We took the saddles off our horses, tied their reins to a tree branch, and I put my knapsack and scab-barded sword on the ground.
    Argent took out his own sword and started doing practice lunges in the clear area beside the road. I wanted to go over to the humming spell-line, but he stayed between me and it. I went and sat down against a pine tree and watched him parrying an invisible blade and skewering an invisible opponent that I bet looked a lot like me.
    After a while he got out of breath. He fetched my sword, then came to where I was sitting and glared down at me. “Come and spar,” he said, tossing my sword onto the ground beside me.
    With him? With real swords? Not likely. He’d beaten the fluff out of me before, trying to teach me swordcraft.
    “Coward,” he said. He lifted his sword and pointed at me, sighting down the blade. “You arenot fit company for Lady Rowan. You’re nothing but a mannerless gutterboy.”
    “I know what I am,” I said.
    “Oh, of course.” Argent snorted and lowered the blade. “You’re a wizard .”
    Right. I nodded.
    “You are a wizard’s servant boy. If you were a wizard yourself, you would have a locus magicalicus to do magic.” He curled his lip. “Go ahead, wizard , do some magic.”
    I got to my feet. Only one way this was going to go, but I didn’t want to fight with him. I pointed at the spell-line. That was magic I’d done.
    Argent narrowed his eyes. He turned away, walked over to a saddlebag, and took something out, which he held behind him. Then he came back to where I was standing. Slowly he brought up his sword, resting the tip just below my throat. I backed up until I was pressed up against the tree.
    “My other idea was a better one,” Argent said.
    Before I could jerk away, he dropped his sword,grabbed me, and spun me around, then pressed my face into the rough bark of the tree with a hand on the back of my head. I squirmed a bit to get away, and he pushed harder, mashing my nose. “Stop it,” he said. Was he going to slice me open with his sword? I kicked backward with my heels, and he put his leg across my legs to hold them against the tree. He caught one of my hands and, leaning against me to keep me still, tied an end of rope around my wrist. Then he flipped me around, and tied my arms behind the tree.
    I blinked bits of pine bark out of my eyes and caught my breath.
    “Little squirmer,” Argent said, backing away from the tree and dusting off his hands. “Like putting a worm on a fishhook.”
    I glared at him.
    “Wizard your way out of that, boy ,”