Read Online Kinshield's Redemption (Book 4) by K.C. May - Free Book Online

made him realize how much stress he’d felt lately. He had to constantly massage the muscles between his neck and shoulder to relieve the tension.
    “May I do that for you, my liege?” Cirang asked.
    “Do what?”
    She lifted her chin towards him. “Ease the ache in your neck and shoulders.”
    He started to refuse, but she reminded him of the debt she owed him and all of Thendylath. “Anything you need, my liege, would be my pleasure and my duty to give you or do for you.”
    “She’s right,” Daia said. “Let her knead your aching muscles. Hell, you should make her wipe your arse, too.”
    Gavin laughed for the first time in days. It felt good and helped him relax even more. “Yeh, awright. Go ahead then. My thanks.”
    He bowed his head and closed his eyes while her strong hands kneaded his shoulders and neck. His mind drifted to the crystal in his knapsack and its seductive power. He wondered why the Guardians were so adamant that he not use their essence. If pulling it back into the crystal didn’t affect his khozhi balance, then why not use it to fuel his magic? If he did, maybe he wouldn’t faint or get headaches.
    “What are you going to do with the crystal?” Daia asked, pulling his thoughts back to the present.
    “That’s enough,” he told Cirang. She returned to the spot she’d been sitting in before the fire, and he tilted his head left and right to work the kinks out. “Maybe I should bury it, but I don’t know. The essence could leak into the groundwater.” He would think about that later. For now, he was ready for sleep. He flapped open his bedroll and blanket.
    “Do they have any ideas on how to reverse the damage the water did to Feanna and the others?”
    Gavin yawned and settled down to sleep. “I’ll ask them in the morning.”
    “You may ask now, if you wish,” they replied. “We don’t sleep.”
    “But I do.” If there was a way, he would find it.
    Daia and Cirang took his cue and lay down as well. “Sleep well,” Daia said.
    His mind kept returning to the Nal Disi, like his eyes to the dancing fire. He turned his mind to Feanna and what she might be doing, but his thoughts came back again and again to the crystal and the Guardians who appeared whenever he asked for them. The temptation to use the crystal to focus his magic was powerful, but he knew that once he gave himself permission to use it, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to stop.
     

Chapter 8

     
     
 
    Though Edan would have preferred to read more from the journal Jaesh had found, he didn’t want to ignore his guests. Sharing a bottle of wine with them after supper gave him an opportunity to get to know Thendylath’s enemy on a more personal level, and he found Kaoque to be exceedingly polite while his stoic guardian, Tokpah, was silent and watchful, refusing to sit, eat or drink in Edan’s presence.
    “Tokpah takes his refreshment when we are alone,” Kaoque explained. “It is the training of a Cyprindian warrior to only guard when he stands guard.”
    “We mean you no harm,” Edan said. “It is our custom to treat guests with honor and dignity while they’re in our home. This,” he said with his hands open, “is not a battlefield.”
    “Please do not take offense. It is the warrior’s way. He does only as he was trained since early in his childhood.”
    Edan leaned back, striking a confident, relaxed pose. “I’m not offended. I consider him to be a guest of the king as well. If he’s more comfortable standing and watching, he’s welcomed to. Did you two travel to Tern alone?”
    “Yes, we with our horses,” Kaoque said. “From Delham, where our ship is anchored offshore.”
    “I hope you didn’t encounter brigands. They frequently patrol the roads, looking for travelers to rob.”
    Kaoque pulled something from a small pocket in his shirt—an amulet consisting of a peach-colored gem encased in an artful cage of gold. “We each have one of these. The gem stores a magic spell that hides