The Wizard's Daughter (Sky Riders of Etherium Book 2)
Page 20
“Just let me die,” Strake said.
“Why?”
“I’m a traitor to my people. I let you have everything I know about Spire’s fleet and our air defenses.”
“Is that all?” the old man said. “You shouldn’t trouble yourself about that. You couldn’t have prevented me from entering your mind and taking what I wanted. No one can. You’d have to have years of training and mental discipline to even try.”
“You destroyed my ship. Killed my crew.”
“Technically, my dragons did that. I just helped them a little. And you provoked them you know. They would have passed you by.”
“That was the second time.”
“Second time for what?”
“Second time I lost my ship and entire crew. In the space of a few months.”
“Heavens! That is unfortunate. I’m terribly sorry.”
“I’m cursed. I’ll never command a ship again. Never fly again. It’s best that I just die.”
“You’re not cursed. There is no such thing as curses. You’re just extremely unlucky.”
“Cursed. Unlucky. What’s the difference? What were your dragons even doing there anyway, on the other side of the world?”
There was a pause. Strake sensed the old man smiling in the dark.
“I would love to tell you,” he said. “But I’m afraid information flows only one way in this relationship”
An idea came to Strake. Or at least the fuzzy beginnings of an idea. Something more useful he could do than starve himself to death. “Tell me,” he said. “And I’ll eat.”
There was another pause. Strake sensed the old man’s smile broadening. “You have the most fascinatingly stubborn mind,” he said. “A real iron will. I’ve encountered few like it. There are parts of your mind even I can’t get into.”
“Do we have a deal?”
The old man chuckled. “I suppose there’s no harm in telling you. Do you swear, on your honor as an admiral, that you will eat?”
“I swear.”
“Very well. My dragons were spying. I can enter their minds, see through their eyes, direct their movements. We had been spying on the Kingdom of Frost, and we were on our way to the Kingdom of Spire to do the same thing.”
“Why were you spying?”
The old man laughed. “That is an entirely different question, admiral, and not part of our deal.” He scooted the tray closer to Strake. “Now eat.”
Strake picked up the bowl of stew with trembling hands. He didn’t bother with the spoon. He brought it up to his lips, tilted it back, and guzzled from it. He groaned with ecstasy, with relief. He’d never tasted anything so perfectly wonderful in all his life. Stew dribbled down his beard onto his blue admiral’s coat.
“Wine?” the old man asked.
“Please,” Strake said with tears in his eyes, wiping his lips with a sleeve.
THE SKY RIDERS OF ETHERIUM
Continues in…
The Dragonlord’s
Apprentice
The adventures Brieze and Tak begin in The Wizard’s Daughter continue and conclude in Minerd’s next book, The Dragonlord’s Apprentice.
After capturing Brieze in The Wind’s Teeth, the pirate Cutbartus Scud sells her as a slave to the Dragonlord, a renegade wizard with the power to control and alter minds. The Dragonlord locks away many of Brieze’s “inconvenient” memories so she can better serve as an apprentice. As she adjusts to her new life in the Dragonlord’s realm, but plots an escape, she meets someone with knowledge about the disappearance of her father. There is just one problem. She no longer remembers anything about her father, or why she journeyed to the East in the first place.
As Tak searches for Brieze, he runs into Scud in the pirate town of Port Roil. Enraged that Scud sold Brieze as a slave, and goaded by his taunts, Tak challenges him to a duel. To the death.
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About the Author
Jeff Minerd thought he stopped writing fiction a long time ago until the story for The Sky Riders of Etherium came to him not in a dream, but after a dream. He is grateful for that, and for the opportunity to explore the world of Etherium and entertain others with what he finds there.
Minerd has a son, Noah, who is also a writer and avid reader. Minerd hopes to one day place in the top ten—or maybe even top 5—of Noah’s favorite authors. But the competition is pretty stiff.
In a previous lifetime, Minerd published short fiction in literary journals, where one of his stories won the F. Scott Fitzgerald short story contest. More recently, Minerd has worked as a science and medical writer for publications and organizations including the National Institutes of Health, MedPage Today, The Futurist magazine, and the Scientist magazine.
Minerd lives in Rochester, NY.
www.JeffMinerd.com