A Love Like Fire by Tricia Owens

Author:Tricia Owens [Owens, Tricia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-03-14T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven

Hadrian's twentieth year...

Six heavy stones levitated in the air before the two white robed men who stood in the castle's courtyard. The stones flew forward to smash into pieces against the worn wall of the castle, pocking its weathered surface. A single boulder also lifted from the ground, trembling in the air as though it would fall at any moment. It steadied before hurtling forward. It struck the same wall but with less force than the stones before it had. It thudded against the wall but did not crack, falling with a heavy thump to the ground.

"Better," Gavedon said without enthusiasm. "But only just. Your performance is remarkable in its mediocrity."

Hadrian, dressed in robes that only last year had been let out to accommodate his late growth spurt, had been standing beside him in hopeful expectation. At his father's words though, the young man's shoulders visibly slumped. Frustration resumed its familiar grooves within his face. "I can’t pull more energy than that,” Hadrian protested quietly. “There's nothing there for me to take."

Gavedon regarded his grown-up son with dispassionate eyes. To his dismay, Hadrian still favored his mother, the fact becoming more obvious with every passing year. Shorter than Gavedon by several inches, with a slim build that no amount of food could fill out and refined features that were a hairsbreadth from being considered feminine, Hadrian was Roisin in the flesh. If it weren't for the saving graces of Hadrian's black hair and gray eyes, Gavedon might have succumbed to his urges and had the young man banished from his sight forever, so great was his displeasure.

But Hadrian was truly his son, if not entirely in appearance then in magickal ability. As the old seer had predicted, Hadrian could draw energy with little effort. Gavedon still denied his son lessons in magecraft, keeping him ignorant in the ways of control, but it hadn’t mattered. Hadrian far surpassed the abilities of the other members of the Order through sheer natural ability.

He was strong, as his performance with the stones proved. But he was not yet able to pull from the heart of Life as Gavedon did. Hadrian could gather the loose, random energy that mages used and control it for magickal purposes. That was a skilled that could be learned by anyone with the motivation. But instinctual power—the ability to draw energy from Life itself—was something only sorcerers possessed. Sorcerers were rare. They were ostracized. They came to Shard’s Point Isle because the Order of the White Shard appreciated them, because Gavedon ni Leyanon was the only man willing to train them and develop their powers.

But he would not train Hadrian, even though he was the truest definition of a sorcerer. Call it self-preservation. Gavedon was no fool. If he remained stronger than Hadrian, he could prevent the prophecy of his son's life from coming true.

"You simply don’t possess the skill, it appears." Gavedon noted his son's disappointment and self-recrimination which appeared often on Hadrian's face of late. Hadrian's inability

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