Free A Magic Broken by Vox Day

blinked. The elfess was of the blood royal?
    “I know what you want, magic man,” the elfess said in the Man tongue. “But I am no use to you, as you already know. My powers, they are gone.”
    The wizard shook his head. “Forgive me, lady, but that is not true. The power may be gone, but you are still of considerable interest to me. Your memory remains. I am sorry for your loss, but the L’Academie has no need of power, not even royal elven power. What we lack is a certain bit of lore that I know is in your possession.”
    “Lore?”
    “Words. Knowledge. That is all. Nothing more.”
    “Which words would that be, precisely?”
    The Man smiled and replied in Elvish.
    The elfess looked pensive and was quiet for a moment.
    “I know the spell of which you speak. It will be of little use to you. Our steeds of the sky cannot be tamed. They are too old and proud to serve Men.”
    “I assure you, His Majesty does not covet your sky steeds. No, let me restate that. He harbors no designs on your warhawks, nor does he imagine any will consent to serve him. The spell is needed for another matter entirely.”
    “That purpose being…?”
    “A noble one. One that will shake the earth.”
    The elfess stared at the Man. Lodi noticed for the first time that they were of a height. “That may be, but is it in the interest of my people that the earth be shaken?”
    “Come, my lady, you are too intelligent and you have lived far too long to believe that things can remain as they are. Kingdoms wax and wane. Peoples rise and fall. Your people broke the Witchkings and nearly broke themselves in the process. Do the three kingdoms still have the strength to resist Zoth Ommog in the west and the growing power of the empire in the south?”
    The Man did not, Lodi noticed with pride, see fit to mention the troll kings. It was the dwarves, and the dwarves alone, who had ended that particular threat. The elfess said nothing, and her silence spoke volumes.
    “Furthermore, in giving, your people will receive a gift of rare value in return.”
    “How so?”
    “Through you, they will be the first to know that noble purpose of which I speak. If it can be done, it will be done. Our Immortels shall succeed eventually, with or without elven assistance. What I seek from you is not the gift of power, but rather the gift of time. One hundred years may be little to an elf, but it is two lifetimes to a king of men.”
    “I see.” Lady Everbright looked off into the forest. When her gaze returned to the mage’s face, her eyes were hard. “And what else shall I receive, warmage, if I give your king this gift of time?”
    “What is your desire?”
    “Vengeance,” she hissed. For the first time since she stabbed the naked man, Lodi saw life in her light green eyes. “I want the race of Man to pay for the insult they have done to me, for the injuries and indignities they inflicted upon me, and most of all, for robbing me of my magic!”
    The Savonder smiled grimly. “Will you settle for lives of the men who enslaved and abused you?” He gestured toward the two dead men who had accompanied him. “Note the second payment on that debt. They were in the service of Quadras Aetias, the whoremaster who bought you from the slaver.”
    “The first payment?”
    “The slaver himself. I killed the man from Orontis two moons past.”
    The elfess stared at the mage for a long moment, then reached out her hands to take his. “Thank you,” she said. “And will you kill the rest?”
    “Aetias will have records of his clients. All who used you, who insulted you, shall die. Then Aetias himself, and, if you wish it, all of his household.”
    “I wish it,” she said imperiously.
    “Then you shall have it, in the name of His Majesty Louis-Charles, the King of Savondir and Lord of the Seven Seats.”
    Lodi winced, but upon reflection, he decided it was likely for the best. The barely controlled fury he could see flickering in her green eyes might well have led