Storm Warning by Mercedes Lackey

Author:Mercedes Lackey
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781101127872
Publisher: Penguin USA, Inc.
Published: 2012-02-14T20:00:13+00:00

“You’re very quiet tonight,” Firesong observed, as An’desha stared at lamplight reflected in the waterfall. “Are you well?”

“Just tired,” An’desha replied truthfully. “I did some work in the garden, and then repeated all the mage-exercises you showed me until my control felt uncertain; then I quit.”

Firesong looked pleased, and An’desha relaxed. He had made the conscious decision to keep this new friendship with the Karsite a secret from Firesong for at least a little while. That was partly because he was not certain how Firesong would react to such a revelation. Granted, Firesong had been encouraging him to be more sociable, but An’desha was not altogether sure what he would do if he learned that An’desha had made a, singular, friend. Especially when he found that friend was male.

It had occurred to him that under those circumstances, Firesong was very likely to come to the erroneous conclusion that his friendship with Karal was based on physical attraction, not mental attraction, and that it might go beyond mere “friendship” before too long.

No, it would be a good thing to keep his meetings with Karal between the two of them—unless Karal brought his master, Lord Priest Ulrich, along. Then it should be safe enough to reveal.

The oddest thing is, he’d never make the same assumption if my friend was female, and it would be far more likely that I’d—ah—get involved with a female than with another man.

“Any more of those premonitions of doom?” Firesong asked, a little teasingly. “They might be useful, actually; it seems that the mages in the Empire—”

Premonitions of doom—

An‘desha gasped, as the ground seemed to drop out from underneath him, and Firesong’s voice faded into a roar that filled his ears. He clutched at the rock he was sitting on, but his fingers didn’t work. Darkness assaulted him—then blinding light. Then darkness again, filled with the twisting snakes of red An’desha always saw after a bright light. He tried to scream and couldn’t. He couldn’t even feel his jaws opening.

Then light, striking him in concentric circles. It was almost as if something had picked him up and was shaking him, waving him as a maiden might wave a scarf in the Rainbird Dance. And everywhere, everywhere, was terrible fear, filling him with icy paralysis. Then the darkness again, and then less light than before, then darkness.

Then it was over, as swiftly and without warning as it had begun. He found himself falling backward, still on his stone, Firesong clutching his shoulders and staring into his eyes, while his hands held to the rock underneath him, spasmed into rigidity.

“What—?” he choked out.

“You were in a trance,” Firesong said, testing An’-desha’s forehead with the back of his hand for fever. “You cried out once, and grabbed for the stone—I saw how your eyes looked, and sensed power about you, and knew you were in a trance. You looked terrified.”

“I was. Am.” An’desha gulped. “It was terrible, horrible, yet there was nothing that I can describe. Light and dark in waves, disorientation.

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