Free The Royal Wizard by Alianne Donnelly Page A

voice. And neither of them dared to blink.
    The knock came again.
    “Enter,” Saeran managed to say, pushing to his feet. The last contact broken, Nia exhaled at last.
    The servant opened the heavy door and entered, stopping just inside, his mouth agape. The table was overturned and the chairs lay in broken heaps against the walls opposite each other. Candlesticks were strewn all over the floor among piles of parchment and scrolls, the tapestries half torn off the walls. It looked as if a storm had raged through the study, catching the prince and his wizard in its path.
    “I…” Liam began but never finished. He offered the large tray instead. “Food.”
    “Thank you,” Saeran said, reaching for the goblet at his feet but the pitcher he sought was shattered by the book shelves. “You may set it down on the floor there.”
    Liam looked concerned. “You Highness, I could send for maids to straighten up—”
    “That won’t be necessary,” Nia said, grateful to have found her voice. She rose and tried her best to smooth her hair back. “Thank you, Liam. That will be all.”
    Doubtful but obedient, Liam set the tray down, bowed and retreated to the safety of the castle above.
    There was silence for long moments after he was gone. Nia didn’t trust herself to look at Saeran, but she felt his gaze on her the entire time. The he swallowed hard and said, “Time really stopped. I did not dream it, did I?”
    Nia nodded. “Time stopped.”
    “Was that supposed to happen?”
    Nia met his gaze uncertainly. “I don’t know,” she admitted.
    Saeran looked away, searching through the mess on the floor. He retrieved the bundle and came toward her.
    Nia shrank away, making him stop in his tracks. “I came to give you this,” he said, placing the bundle on what used to be her pallet. “It did not seem right to leave it lying in the woods. I burned the rest.” Then he turned on his heels and left, closing the door behind him with a gentle click.
    Only when he was gone did Nia move again. She took the bundle and carefully untied the cloth.
    Inside was the wolf’s pelt.

 
    CHAPTER 7
     
    “Something is bothering you.”
    Saeran looked away from the window at his father. “What?”
    “I said something is bothering you,” Manfred repeated. “And before the crown has even touched your head. This does not put my mind at ease about leaving, son.”
    “Oh. It’s nothing, really.” He looked back out at the children playing in the wet, melting snow. “Only…time.”
    “Time?”
    “Yes, time. It comes, it goes. Never stops. Have you ever thought about time, Father?”
    “I don’t believe I have. Time, you say?”
    Warming to the subject, Saeran came to the table covered with long sheets of cloth. “Is this the whole of time or only a part of it? Is there an end to time? Where is the beginning? Does it move from past to present, or is it still and we are the ones who move? And what if it stops?” He crumpled the fabric together. “Does anyone else notice?” He looked to his father for an answer. “What do you think?”
    “I…”
    “Because if all of time stopped, nothing should have moved.” He wasn’t certain anything had moved. But everything had. There hadn’t been a single thing in Nia’s study that hadn’t shifted, flown, fallen or shattered. How had that happened? The lack of answers maddened him, especially when he couldn’t ask the one person who might have the answers.
    But would she? Nia had looked just as stunned that day. Then again, a wizard probably encountered stranger things every day. She would have already forgotten about it. No doubt. Put it right out of her mind.
    How could she? Time had stopped! Or they had stopped. Or the world had, or…something. He’d kissed other girls before, and that had never happened. And one or two of them had been witches.
    “Well, I see you are otherwise engaged. I will leave you to it, then.”
    And that kiss! What had he been thinking? Why for the