Read Online The Sorcerer's Concubine (The Telepath and the Sorcerer Book 1) by Jaclyn Dolamore - Free Book Online

wry. “You know how attached I am to Fern but she’s not much of a conversationalist.”
    “Well, come in, both of you,” the woman said. She put her hand atop Velsa’s in greeting, which no woman had ever done before. Velsa almost drew back from sheer surprise. “I’m Morya. Make yourself at home. Horan, look at this—Grau has a concubine.” 
    Horan squinted at them over an account book. He was a skinny man whose knobby hands and spectacles suggested that he occasionally paid for a little shape-shifting to his face to keep wrinkles away, but not much else. “A concubine? She’s dressed like a stable boy.”
    “It’s my fault,” Grau said. “But find me a stable boy this pretty.”
    “That’ll have to wait until morning,” Horan joked. “And we charge extra for it, too.”
    Besides some initial surprise that Velsa could eat, her presence at the dinner table was accepted without much comment.
    “Grau, aren’t you supposed to join the border patrol?” Horan asked at dinner.
    “Soon.”
    “I’d reconsider, if it’s true about the dragon.”
    “Dragon?” Grau seemed close to laughter. “That’s quite a rumor. A dragon, down here? If nothing else, the Miralem wouldn’t put a precious dragon in danger. I heard there are only about fifty left in the whole world.”
    “I think there must be a few more than that,” Horan said. “And I tell you, there’s one in the mountains. Lots of people have seen it.”
    “Which people, dear?” the woman said, seeming as skeptical as Grau.
    “Travelers!” Horan said. “The ones that come through all the time and talk to me for hours. Unlike you, I listen.”
    “Oh, what nonsense. If I don’t listen, it’s because I’m tired of tall tales. I’m sure if there was a dragon in the mountains we’d hear about it in the papers and not just in whispers.”
    “You don’t think we’ll ever really see a dragon, do you?” Velsa asked Grau that night as she settled into bed.
    “No,” he said, without hesitation, as he unbuttoned his boots. “They’re very rare. They always have been, but loads of them died in the War of the Crystals. The population never recovered.”
    A fire-breathing dragon would have no trouble harming a Fanarlem.
    “You’re not afraid of a dragon, are you?” he asked.
    “Shouldn’t I be?”
    “I’d like to see one,” he said.
    “A friendly one, maybe.”
    “From a comfortable distance,” he agreed. “Of course. But they’re the only magic beast left in the world.”
    “What happened to the rest?”
    “They went extinct. People killed them. The dragons allowed themselves to be tamed in order to survive. They’re clever enough to negotiate.”
    “That’s sad, though.”
    He settled into bed beside her. “Kill or be killed. Control or be controlled. You probably sympathize with the dragons now, don’t you?”
    “I do. But Fanarlem have no choice.”
    “I don’t think the dragons really did either.” She rested her head on the pillow, his head lifted just above her. She liked watching his face as he spoke; in the House she mostly only saw other Fanarlem faces. The girls didn’t have quite so many subtleties of expression, so many small muscles. “Do you want me to set you free?” he asked.
    “I’d be in far more danger if you set me free. I wouldn’t know where to go.”
    His lips pressed together in a grim expression; when they parted again, his mouth had a faint wet sheen. For some reason it made her think of the flowers that bloomed outside the House in the spring, when the dew kissed them in the morning.
    “I like having you with me,” he said. “I didn’t consider that you might resent anyone who owned you, doesn’t matter who it is.”
    She was quiet, for a long moment, torn between all the things she had been taught and all the feelings buried deep within her. She wanted to be free, but she couldn’t be free, and she hardly knew what it would mean. A simple path had been laid out for her, to share