Hunted Sorcery (Jon Oklar Book 2) by B.T. Narro (chapter books to read to 5 year olds .txt) 📕

Another thing for me to appreciate.

After a few sips in silence, Michael asked, “So who do you think is working against us?”

“I’m more concerned trying to figure out what they might be planning instead of who they are.”

“Does the king have any idea?”

I studied his expression, but Michael he seemed more interested in his ale at the moment. He looked up at me and appeared shocked.

“You don’t think I’m a traitor!?” he said, and I could hear he was really offended this time, as opposed to before.

Somebody was a talented liar, and I didn’t put it past Michael. But no, if I had to take a guess, it was not him. “Of course not,” I assured him.

“You had me worried for a moment.” He took another sip, eyeing me the whole time.

“Do you have any guess as to what our enemies might be planning?” I asked.

“Cason clearly wanted us to be afraid. It’s why he threatened you rather than killed you when you first met him. He thought he could use that fear to take power. I’m glad he was wrong. Then he attacked you and Leon in the street thinking he could kill you. Again, he was wrong. My guess is that he’s tired of being wrong. He’s probably planning something with a very low chance of failure. It could be something small, a theft from a noble family. It’s not just power he wants, as the king described, but coin as well. But we can’t let him get this coin, even if it’s from a rich family that is not supporting the king. It’s our true enemies in Rohaer who need this coin. They have been working with Cason for some time now.”

All of that sounded right to me. “So you don’t think any of us are going to be targeted?”

“No. But that’s just a guess.”

We each were taking longer drinks by then.

“What does the king have you doing tomorrow?” Michael asked.

“I have to check up on someone for him. I’ll have the callring in case something happens, but I don’t expect to find trouble.”

Michael seemed disappointed by my answer. He looked down at the table for a little while, then picked up his mug. He started to take a sip but stopped. “I do understand that you shouldn’t reveal too much to anyone until we know who the traitor is, and I’m trying not to let it bother me.” He took a drink. “It is hard, though,” he added.

I’d had a few friends in Bhode, but I wasn’t as close with any of them as I felt to Michael. Most of us growing up in my small town were usually just trying to have fun. There wasn’t a lot of care put into our actions.

I wasn’t sure how to express this to him. I thought on it for some time, but the right words just didn’t come.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “It would be much worse for me here without you.”

“Reuben and Charlie as your only friends, can you imagine?”

I smiled. “I can.”

We were getting close to finishing the last of our ale. I had been looking forward to eating quickly and sleeping, but now I didn’t want to leave.

“I’ve been wondering something,” I said.

“What’s that?”

“Why can’t the king have Barrett make us sign another binding contract, this one promising we won’t help Cason in any way?”

“I asked that same thing to Eden in the forest earlier. Apparently, a person can only be bound to one contract at a time. The binding spell won’t work with the second contract.”

“That seems strange.”

“Does it, though? Think about if two contracts could be signed. One could have you protect the king and the other could have you try to kill him. Now that sounds like a strange scenario to me. What is this individual to do? I’m glad such a situation is not possible.”

“I mean it’s strange that, by nature, we are limited to only one contract. It’s almost as if it was planned.”

“Eden and Kataleya believe it was, remember?” Michael said. “The rules of ordia were made by one demigod, Nijja. To be honest, I’m starting to believe the same thing. How else would you explain some of these rules? Like how Identify tells the caster what enchantment is active. I just don’t see how that could have occurred naturally.”

“The spell coming to exist naturally makes sense to me. It’s because our mana is capable of so much, probably more than we realize. Normally, we have to speak to our mana to create a spell. Identify is one spell where it works the other way, the mana speaking to us. There might be other spells that work similarly, probably with ordia.”

“You must be looking forward to learning it, if I know you as well as I think I do.”

“I am.” That reminded me that I should be heading to bed. I thought about finishing the last of my ale, but Michael spoke quickly as if to stop me.

“So you don’t believe in the demigods? You know, there have been accounts of people seeing them, even speaking with them. It seems to be happening more recently than before.”

“Eden told you this?”

“She did.”

“What kind of conversations did these people have with demigods?”

He shrugged. “What about the krepps?”

“That’s a good point.”

Even the king hadn’t found a way to explain the krepps learning common tongue, coming to meet with us, and describing an interaction with Souriff, the demigod who created dvinia.

Michael grinned. “All right, last drink because it is too late now.” He lifted his mug. “To when this is over, and we can really celebrate.”

“I look forward to the day.”

We finished the last of our ale. I was certainly starting to feel it go to my head, as it had been a tall mug he’d filled.

We went to leave our mugs and my plate in the washing tub in the kitchen. “What do you think of Eden?” Michael asked me suddenly.

I held in a smirk. “I think she’s funny, but she