Free The Wizard King by Julie Dean Smith

Brand, she had actually come to like the Caithan princess and enjoyed acting the part of lady’s maid to her.
    “She did only as I asked her to,” Brandegarth pointed out in her defense. “And you must realize that my plans for Caithe were preordained. Little that Drianna told me could have changed them.”
    The Sage dismissed the two guardsmen with a flick of his wrist, but bade Tullis to remain. Then he paused, silently appraising his captive. “Don’t you even want to know why I’ve sent for you?”
    Ranulf sniffled crudely. “You’ll get to it. Far be it from me to rush you, your Grace.”
    “No need to be so suspicious, my friend,” Brand replied, overlooking the mercenary’s mildly baiting tone. “I sent for you to tell you that you are free to go.”
    Ranulf studied the Sage without blinking. “Just like that?”
    “Almost. You may leave on the condition that you perform one simple task for me.”
    Ranulf ran stubby fingers through his fresh growth of red beard and snorted. “You lock me up for four months and expect me to do ye a favor? That’s rich.”
    “It is a small thing. When you leave here, I imagine that you will go directly to Athaya Trelane and tell her everything that has transpired here. All I ask is that you add one more thing to your report.”
    Drianna detected the mercenary’s muscles relax slightly; when he had been imprisoned, he knew only that Nicolas was about to be bound by a spell of compulsion. He was clearly relieved to know that the spell had not been crafted to induce the prince to murder his sister, Athaya. But what it
had
induced him to do, he as yet had no idea.
    “What did you do to Nicolas?”
    Brandegarth waved his hand negligently. “Old news, my friend. Athaya will tell you about it when you see her, I’m sure.” He made a clicking sound with his tongue. “A most unfortunate turn of events, I’m sorry to say.”
    For a man of his bulk, Ranulf was deceptively quick. Rage flared anew in his eyes, burning away all his former caution, and he lunged at the Sage with a growl of untempered fury. “Tell me, damn you!” Shunning weapons of magic, Ranulf was content to tear the flesh from his enemy’s body with his bare hands.
    With ineffable calm, Brandegarth held up his right hand, palm facing his attacker.
“Salvum fac sub aspide!”
    Drianna had seen the Sage cast a shielding spell many times before, but never to such spectacular effect. She expected a shower of blue sparks to deal a stiff but harmless shock to the prisoner, but this time, the instant Ranulf’s flesh touched the invisible shield, the room blazed with sparkling white brilliance like sunlight on the sea, temporarily blinding her. Her ears rang to the point of pain from the loud
pop
that followed.
    When her vision cleared, she saw Ranulf sprawled flat on his back, limbs splayed in abandon like a starfish washed up on the sand. His eyes were open and glassy, his body motionless. Beside him, the normally imperturbable Tullis stared in wide-eyed shock, shaken to his soul by the awesome power that had just been unleashed.
    The Sage bent down beside Ranulf, slack-jawed with astonishment; clearly, he had not expected his spell to carry such force. His eyes shifted and he stared at his empty palm as if he had never seen its like before.
    “Is he dead?” Drianna asked, kneeling beside the fallen man. Black spots danced before her eyes in the spell’s aftermath. “Brand, did you—”
    Ranulf’s groan of misery announced that he was alive, but not particularly glad of it at the moment. “I can’t move…”
    It took several minutes before Ranulf’s numbed limbs tingled to life again and he could sit up without toppling over. He cast a furtive glance at the Sage as he swiftly reassessed the odds of winning a fight. Finding them heavily weighted against him, he tossed a scathing glare at Drianna, content to blame her for everything.
    Still preoccupied by the stunning bolt of power he had summoned,