Read Online The Wizard King by Julie Dean Smith - Free Book Online Page A

buttery and brewhouse, sending a half-dozen hens, two milkmaids, and a cat scurrying out of his path as he finally disappeared into the palace stables. By the time Drianna caught up with him, wheezing at the effort, he had emerged again and sought a new destination. A stableboy poked his head out of the doorway after him, shaking it in bewilderment.
    Drianna trailed the Sage into the kitchens, catching up again just as he lurched across the threshold like a stallion bursting free of his stall. Cooks and scullery maids busily wiped flour and grease from their faces in an attempt to look respectable for their lord, and one young girl hastily swept her worktable clean of onion skins. While everyone in the palace knew by now that the Sage was free of the sealing spell, they had no more expected to see him up and about—much less darting about the castle like a madman—than they would have thought to see a new mother hop on a horse and take a ride around the island within an hour of giving birth.
    “Where are the youngest?” he asked them, scanning the puzzled faces before him. “Those less than nineteen. Don’t be shy—I won’t bite them. Bring them forward!”
    One by one, the youngest girls were prodded forward by the older women and placed in a disorderly line, like a squadron of soldiers about to undergo inspection. The girls fidgeted anxiously, rubbing at spots of grime on their aprons or twirling locks of hair around their fingers. Then, one by one, the Sage reached out and brushed against their minds; he placed his hands on their temples and breathed deep, scrying their souls for the sign. If he did not find what he sought after several minutes, he sent them off with a mumbled word of dismissal.
    After he had tested seven of the assembled twelve and found nothing, Drianna sensed that his temper was growing thin. He was so desperate to possess the ability, Drianna feared that if he did not, he would seal himself for an even longer time and surely kill himself in his quest for power.
    But as he cupped the head of the eighth girl, a sallow-faced drudge smelling of onions, he finally found what he sought. His eyes snapped open, and his face glowed as if he had just been gifted with a visitation by an angel. “Ah! Blessed child!” he cried, kissing the grubby creature full upon the lips. “You carry God’s mark! What is your name? How old are you?”
    “P-peg, your Grace,” she stammered, still reeling from his unprecedented show of affection. “An’ I’m almost fifteen.” Openmouthed, Peg stared at her lord with a curious mix of delight and terror, but if the girl thought him mad, Drianna mused, she knew better than to say so.
    The Sage embraced her warmly, as if she was his long-lost heir. “The seed is within you, Peg. You are one of God’s chosen people. In a matter of years, you will come into your magic and will rise up in this world.”
    Peg’s eyes grew round as the onions she had been chopping for the evening’s stew. “How do you know?”
    The Sage smiled down on her with the benevolence of a saint. “God has given His secrets to me as reward for my devotion,” he said. “If you prove yourself worthy one day, Peg, then perhaps He will do the same for you.”
    He abruptly dismissed the remaining four girls. They crept back to their tasks, some visibly glad for the reprieve and others disappointed that their future would not be told that day. The Sage bestowed a bow of respect upon Peg as he backed dazedly out of the kitchens; the moment he was gone, Drianna saw the other girls cluster around Peg as if she were a new bride, chattering congratulations on her auspicious future.
    “I have it,” the Sage murmured, as he staggered drunkenly across the courtyard. “I have the power. It is so simple! A shining seed in the darkness… one only needs the power to see it and then it is so clear… like a pearl on black velvet, or a lantern in the night. Lord of my people, I thank you,” he went on,