Read Crystal Throne (Book 1) for Free Online

but he didn’t have the time to stop and check. By the time the sun went down the pain had moved from a slight annoyance to nearly bringing tears to his eyes.
    That night they picked a large tree to camp under. The sky was clear, and Thad had seen no sign of rain in the sky so he saw no real reason to look for a place to stay dry, but he figured it was more of habit then for any real tangible reason.
    As soon as he had found a place for the night Thad began to strip off his boots. When he took off his first boot it revealed a metal leg that was attached right above where his ankle should have been. Thad ran his fingers slowly across the cold metal as he remembered when he had first lost his foot. It had been ages since the Ablaians had captured him during the war. They were a warlike nation and their way to keep prisoners from escaping was to remove one of their feet.
    Thad looked over the boot and checked it for wear. It was still in good repair though the heel was slightly more worn down than the rest of the sole. Setting aside the first boot, Thad removed the other. Thad had to hold back a shocked yell as he looked down at his foot. His pinky toe was stiff and hard and had a slight sparkle to it. Thad didn’t have to think hard to figure out what had happened. Just like the other things on this planet his body was slowly turning to crystal and it wasn’t a painless transformation.
    “Thuraman can you do anything about this?” Thad asked having no clue himself about how to solve the problem.
    I have been draining away the excess magical energy as fast as I could, but it looks like I was still too slow. It is amassing in your body and crystalizing much the same way it does within the earth, though in this case it is doing it much faster. Unless you can block the magical energy or harness it somehow there is nothing that can be done to stop the process.
    “What about the others?” Thad asked a slight trace of concern in his voice.
    Unlike you, they can hold a lot more magical energy and most of it is naturally drained away though some still lingers.  Should they spend enough time here the same thing would happen to them though it would take years for them to start showing signs. That includes your son.
    “That’s some good news at least,” Thad said as he probed his crystal toe. “How long do you think it will take at its current rate to completely take over my body?”
    It is hard to say, but my best guess would put it at no more than twelve days.            
    Twelve days was not that long and Thad was sure that it would take longer than that to reach their destination and return home. He had to find a solution, and fast, otherwise he would become nothing but a burden to the others.
    Thad opened his magical senses. Everything around his radiated magical energy. Usually there was small lines of magic running through the world around him, but now it was almost blinding. There was not a single place where magic had not permeated. His own body was no different though it didn’t shine as brightly as his surroundings with the exception of his one crystal toe which shined as brightly as the rest of the world around him.
    It was odd to see the magic gathering in his body. It had a different feel than the magic he was used to. He had long known that magical energy had its own direction. It wasn’t so much as thoughts but simply a direction for its course. The magic in this world was different…It was much stronger and had a hostile feel to it. Thad could almost see the small pieces of magical energy attacking his body, trying to take it over. He felt as if he just listened a little harder he could hear it as well. Thad had to force himself away from the energy and its almost hungry pull.
    Thad began to look at the rest of the world and its eerie crystal structure for answers to his problem. He had always considered himself skilled in magic, but compared to his son and the other gods, he was nothing more than a