Read Online Beyond the Boundary Stones (The Chronicles of Tevenar Book 3) by Angela Holder - Free Book Online Page A

with a familiar. That way, if somebody tries to do something bad with her power, or tries to use being a wizard to manipulate people, their familiar can break their bond.” He swallowed and studied his hands.
    She studied him, her perceptive eyes seeing far more than Josiah had meant to reveal. “You’ve seen it happen?”
    “Yeah.” He shrugged. “A couple times. It’s pretty bad. It hurts a lot, and you’re knocked unconscious for three days.” He glanced at Elkan. “You can ask Elkan if you want to know more. Sar used to be his, but he broke their bond. Not because Elkan had done anything wrong,” he hastened to add. “He was out of energy, and I wasn’t, and it was an emergency…” Josiah shrugged again. “Otherwise a bond lasts until either the wizard or the familiar dies.”
    “I see.” The Matriarch looked Sar over with far more interest than Josiah liked. He put a possessive hand on the donkey’s back. Sar’s skin shuddered under his palm, but he made no comment except a mild impression of reassurance in Josiah’s mind.
    The Matriarch reached to stroke Sar’s velvet nose. Sar didn’t object, so Josiah couldn’t, even though he wanted to. “The Mother only touches animals in Tevenar?”
    This was a safe subject, and one he was sure would interest her. “Up until now, yes. But Elkan thinks that’s going to change. There used to be a Law that wizards and familiars weren’t allowed to go any farther from Tevenar than the boundary stones in the north and south. But right before we left, the Mother changed that.” Josiah hoped the Matriarch wouldn’t question him too closely about how that had happened. He couldn’t tell the whole story without revealing Kevessa’s secret.
    He hurried on. “She said that her power is for the whole world now. So Elkan thinks she’ll start touching animals here in Ramunna pretty soon, and maybe all over Ravanetha. But not many, at least not at first, because we’re going to have to teach the new wizards how to use her powers—it’s not as easy as you’d think. And if she touches the world too often it causes problems, earthquakes and floods and hurricanes, that sort of thing.”
    The Matriarch’s brow creased. Smash it, she was going to ask why that happened, and he had no idea how he’d explain, because he didn’t fully understand himself.
    Sure enough, her lips shaped a “W—” before a stir by the door caught her attention. Josiah breathed a sigh of relief as her gaze went past his shoulder. For a moment an odd combination of eagerness and wariness flashed across her features, before she smoothed them into their usual uncommunicative mask.
    “We must continue this conversation later,” she said to Josiah as she rose, without moving her gaze from the door. She swept across the room, extending her hands in welcome. “Renarre.”
    Josiah swiveled in his seat, curious to see what sort of man was married to the Matriarch. It must be an odd sort of relationship, with one partner having so much more power than the other. He must love her an awful lot to put up with always being in her shadow, subject to her whims, vulnerable to being discarded if she tired of him or if he failed to meet her needs.
    The man in the doorway was tall and solidly built, with close-cropped salt-and-pepper hair and weathered skin. He was dressed in the same sort of elaborate silk and velvet clothes as Gevan and the other men of the Matriarch’s court, but the colors were more muted than most Josiah had seen, dark blues and browns. He bowed to the Matriarch, took one of her hands in his, and brushed the back of her fingers with a light kiss. He straightened with a reserved but genuine smile. “Verinna.”
    “Come meet the wizards, Renarre.” She pulled him over to where Elkan and Yerenna had risen. Josiah belatedly jumped to his feet as well, hoping his delay hadn’t been too rude. “This is Master Elkan. He examined me and says he’ll be able to use the Mother’s