Read Online The Magic Engineer by L. E. Modesitt Jr. - Free Book Online

mixed fruit off one platter—mostly dried apples. She replaces most of the apples and picks some peaches and pearapples. Next come some of the hard rolls that it would take the force of Hegl’s hammer to dent.
    At the moment, Dorrin misses the smith more than he appreciates Hegl’s daughter across the table from him. Dorrin takes a sip of his tea, bitter even with the large glob of honey.
    Brede crunches through a hard roll, oblivious to the sounds or the force he has exerted. He follows the destruction with a gulp of tea that drains the mug. A huge hand reaches for the pitcher and refills the mug.
    Finally, as the silence drags out, Dorrin puts his half-empty cup in one of the slots in the center of the table and stands, glancing from Kadara to Brede and back. Kadara looks up. “We’ll join you on deck later.”
    Brede just keeps eating, slowly and methodically, his eyes on the smooth brown wood of the table as he shovels in the heaping pile of fruit, cheese, and hard rolls.
    Outside on the main deck, the wind has dropped into a gentle breeze, and patches of blue appear in the clouds to the west. Dorrin stands on the left side of the Ryessa , watching the wind carry spray from the crests of the dark green waves. The Ryessa does not exactly cut through the sea, her motion more closely approximating a lumber.
    Dorrin wipes the spray off his forehead. How can he even decide what he wants to do? Lortren, Gelisel, and his father have all been telling him that everything is obvious, that machines are the tools of chaos. But are they? A still small voice within Dorrin protests that classification.
    The Ryessa surges through another heavy swell, and the spray from the impact cascades over Dorrin.
    “May I join you?”
    Dorrin jumps.
    Kadara stands almost beside him.
    “Where’s Brede?” Dorrin asks.
    “You’re as direct as ever,” she says. “He’s still eating, but I imagine he’ll be here shortly.”
    “Wonderful.”
    “Dorrin…” Kadara’s voice is soft, but carries an exasperated edge.
    Dorrin holds a sigh. Does he really want to talk to her? “Sorry.”
    “Brede can’t help it if he’s good with a blade.”
    Or with you, Dorrin thinks. Instead, he answers, “I suppose not.”
    “You know I owe this to you?” Kadara does not look at Dorrin as they stand by the railing.
    “You’ve said so more than once.”
    The stiff western breeze carries the tang of salt as it whips the short red hairs around Kadara’s face.
    “Do you mind if I join you?”
    Dorrin looks over his shoulder and up at the tall blond figure with broad shoulders. “Feeling better, Brede?”
    “I was hungry.” The blond man smiles, a warm and winning smile. He wears gray trousers and a bright blue, long-sleeved shirt. Without the long sword he usually wears across his back, he looks far more like the Feyn Valley farmer’s son he is than the well-practiced blade he has become in the two seasons the three have spent at the Academy under Lortren.
    “How long before we get to Tyrhavven?” asks Kadara.
    “Another day or so, at least,” answers Brede.
    Dorrin shrugs, looking back at the bow of the Ryessa just intime to catch another faceful of stinging salt spray.
    A gust of wind sprays fine blond hair around Brede’s face, and a hand twice the size of Dorrin’s absently brushes it back.
    “That’s a long way from Land’s End,” muses Kadara.
    Silence and the swishing of the sea are preferable to a dubious discussion. Instead, Dorrin watches the water. Brede frowns, then straightens and heads toward the stern. Another spray almost touches the edge of the deck.
    “You don’t make conversation easy, you know.” Kadara’s voice is quiet.
    Dorrin barely hears her above the waves, the whisper of the wind, and the creaking of the ship. “What is there to say?”
    “That’s it. You never talk to me anymore. It’s as if we’re strangers, yet we grew up next door to each other.”
    You have Brede, Dorrin wants to snap at her.