Ring of Troth (A King's Watch Story Book 3) by Mark Hayden

Author:Mark Hayden [Hayden, Mark]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Tags: Urban Fantasy
Publisher: Paw Press
Published: 2019-12-20T07:00:00+00:00

Conrad lit a cigarette as soon as Chris had closed the doors behind him. ‘Did no one say anything?’ said Chris.

‘Too polite,’ said Conrad. ‘And we’re talking Mages here. They don’t share as a rule.’

Chris blew out his cheeks. ‘Tammy was a rare thing. An Imprint Healer. Sort of like a psychiatrist,’ he added for my benefit. I don’t think Conrad had much more of a clue. ‘She helped young – really young – Mages to adapt to their powers. You were lucky, Conrad. You got your Gift in one fell swoop from the Allfather. Us born Mages have to cope with puberty and magick powers.’

There was a yawning gap in my head between the Tamsin he was telling us about and the near-child who’d run sobbing from the hall. Was tonight’s version his daughter? Please, Ganesh, no. That would be unthinkable.

‘She used to cycle everywhere,’ he continued. ‘As fanatical as my running.’ He sniffed and looked away. ‘We’d been married twelve years. She was thirty-seven and she’d just found out she was pregnant. She was dealing with a really horrible case, a mix of anorexia and Displacement. The girl took an overdose of the remedy Tammy had given her. A fatal overdose.

‘Tammy had just left their house after a visit when the girl did it. Her parents rang Tammy, and Tammy turned straight round and pedalled furiously back to the house. She didn’t see the lorry, and the lorry driver certainly didn’t see her. It was instant.’

He breathed in a lungful of air that seemed to go on forever and let it out in a whoosh. ‘In her head, Tammy was on her way to rescue the girl, and that intention carried her Spirit on. She was only round the corner. When her Spirit arrived, the girl was dead. Tammy merged herself with the girl and woke up enough to take aspirin. That was the antidote.’

Conrad and I stared at each other. In case I hadn’t understood, I let him ask the questions.

‘Tammy’s Spirit performed a full Erase and Merge?’ he said. I’m glad he asked. That question sounded right to me, but I didn’t have the jargon.

‘She did,’ said Chris. He paused for a while. ‘The big problem was the girl’s parents. Her mother was a Mage, and she blamed Tammy. Brought the wrath of the law down on us. Magickal and mundane.’

‘Mundane?’ That was me.

‘Told the police I was interested in her fourteen year old daughter. Reported Tammy to the King’s Watch and to the Provost of Salomon’s House.’

‘What did they do?’

‘Social services intervened after they had a fight. A real fight. With blood. Tammy went to a foster home and we wrote letters to each other for a year until she was sixteen. We got married on her eighteenth birthday. The mundane consequences were bad enough. The magickal ones were horrendous.’

‘What happened?’

‘The King’s Watch weren’t interested. I don’t know what Hannah would have done, but she wasn’t the Constable then. The Provost took a different view.’

I looked at Conrad, who explained by saying, ‘Gregory Parrish is the Provost.

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