Read First Comes The One Who Wanders for Free Online Page B

Leilas considered creating some light to help ease the feeling of being crushed, but it took energy to keep the light going and she was going to need all she had left to get them through the dangers ahead. Besides, she didn’t need to face the danger a light might attract.
    As the hallway began to narrow, it also began a steep decline. It would continue down deep into the depths of the catacombs beneath the castle.
    "She's leading us to the Echoes," Brenth whispered to his mother. Queen Daina raised startled eyes to her son and then her expression changed to concern as her gaze drifted up toward her daughter. Dropping back, she joined Joshuas as they followed Leilas.
    "Leilas can't go into the Echoes," she told the crafter in a soft voice. "She won't survive the journey this time. They know who she is and will be intent on stopping her."
    "There is no other way," returned Joshuas in an equally quiet voice, "at least not an easy way."
    "Leilas barely made it through the first time. It took months for her to return to some semblance of normal, and she never was the same. Gidron shouldn't have taken her there."
    "Why did he take her there? Joshuas frowned in the darkness as he peered forward toward Leilas. "It's forbidden by the Council."
    "I'm not sure," mused Queen Daina quietly. "He was intent on taking her there. He was often insistent on her stretching her powers and introducing her to situations I felt she wasn't ready to tackle. But I didn't interfere because I didn't feel it was my place to interfere with her training."
    "I knew the day she was born that she was destined to be a crafter," continued Queen Daina, after a thoughtful pause. "That’s why I didn't say anything when the masters came and took her to the school and why I didn't involve myself in her training, why I didn't involve myself much with her life at all. She's very different from Brenth." She turned to Joshuas looking for understanding. "Brenth is like me, Menas, but Leilas," Daina shook her head in bewilderment. "I'm only glad that she chose to pursue the good side of the magic and not the evil."
    Urging the queen to walk a bit faster, Joshuas hastened to catch up with Leilas, who was slipping out of his sight. He needed to stop her before she reached the Echoes. If what the queen was saying was true, he didn't want Leilas in the Echoes, either. They weren't for beginners who'd already given the spirits who resided there an opportunity to find out their weaknesses.
    "Do you believe she could have gone toward the evil?" asked Joshuas. He'd only met his new ward, but he hadn't felt any evil in her, darkness, but no evil.
    "Her father is a very evil man," Queen Daina shrugged. "She is part of him."
    "So is Brenth, do you have the same fears about him?"
    "As I said, I understand Brenth. Leilas is, –different."
    Joshuas nodded and kept his thoughts to himself.
    "Leilas," he called to her. "Is there another way out?"
    Leilas stopped walking and turned toward Joshuas. Brenth almost walked into her before he realized she'd come to a halt. "Besides the way we abandoned, all the other hallways come out somewhere in the Manor or inside the walls," answered Leilas, in a loud whisper so her mother and Brenth could hear the conversation. "Through the Echoes is the only way that leads to an opening outside the walls."
    "There is a hallway down here that leads to the stables," Brenth offered. "We may be able to find some horses there, and perhaps some food."
    "There would almost certainly be soldiers there," argued Leilas.
    "Perhaps in this instance, it might be better to fight an enemy we know rather than one we don't know," replied Joshuas. "Food and mounts would be a plus."
    Leilas attempted to understand the abrupt about face. Joshuas hadn't wanted to run into soldiers or magiks. She had agreed because she didn't want to subject her mother or brother to unnecessary danger. As far as she knew, nothing had changed. They still had to consider her mother and