Read Prodigal Steelwielder (Seals of the Duelists Book 3) for Free Online

do the basic repairs around here,” Teos’s sentences were as twisted with their strange Akrestan construction as Calder's old friend Odjin’s. “The Godsmaw, it’s entirely unforgiving, especially in winter.” The Akrestoi nodded his stiff, short blond braids toward the water that lashed hungrily beneath Calder’s Water avatar, Fogbreath, a giant ice crystal. “When I was first assigned to the Muggenhem duel den, this cliff extended another forty strides toward town.”
    As Calder watched and waited, balanced atop his fountain spell, the viny arms on Teos’s wood avatar ripped another chunk of stone from the living cliff and passed it toward Calder, keeping it several strides above the Godsmaw’s crashing surf. Fogbreath accepted the heavy stone into the midst of a swirling vortex that kept it afloat. From his vantage point on the topmost fountain jet, Calder saw the dark stones of the jetty underwater. He spun the boulder out to the end of the construction then let the vortex dissipate. The heavy stone immediately sank two strides under the rough surface and came to rest on the pebbly sea floor.
    Calder took a deep breath and rolled his shoulders, easing the ache, and felt a small weight brush against his thigh. He slipped a finger into his pocket and tapped his nail against a dueling walnut, which contained a steel ball within its shell. Though he’d never used such a walnut in a duel—it wouldn’t do to show off the impossible in front of a crowd—he’d seen actual battle, and he didn’t want to be caught wishing he had one and finding only empty pockets. Cracking the shell and hurling the steel ball through one of his avatars would destroy its physical form and allow him to remake the avatar in a different shape—a potentially critical advantage in the middle of a fight. The ancient book of duelism that Tala and Bayan had found under the Temple told him and his hexmates that such a practice had been commonplace long ago, but it had fallen out of favor along with the potioneers. But no self-respecting Dunfarroghan would ignore an advantage in battle simply because it wasn’t socially acceptable.
    Calder pressed his pocket flap tight and turned his attention back to Teos, whose avatar was busy ripping out the next chunk of rock. Calder studied the sheer cliffs that ringed the Godsmaw for as far northward as he could see. “Bloody contrary water,” he called to Teos. “When I first arrived, I dinna understand why everyone used the Karkhedonian term for the Gyre when the rest of the empire stuck to the Waarden word.”
    “Your face, I remember it during your first storm,” Teos called back. “Your trousers, you nearly soiled them.”
    Calder shuddered. “Aye. ‘Godsmaw’ has the proper ring of terror to it.”
    His eyes swung south toward Muggenhem and the broad, open beach that formed the public docks. Villagers swarmed the sand like ants, sawing tree trunks into replacement planks for their lost docks, forming shovel lines that redistributed the sand deposited by the last storm and smoothing the dunes. Others floated off shore on barges as the men aboard attempted to replace the sunken pilings that had become lurking, jagged teeth, hungry for boat keels.
    The Godsmaw looked calm, but Calder knew it was a rarity. The swirling sea got restless during winter storms, and he couldn’t wait for the warming of spring to tame the wild waves. He’d spent too many days that winter smoothing unruly dunes. The winter before that, Calder had been new to the duel den, and Hanna, the Head Duelist, had crammed his mind with far too much social etiquette. Kiwani should have been assigned to this duel den . She already knows all those unspoken rules. I was probably the worst choice of all of us for such a posh placement. His expression soured. Sure an’ that’s why they stuck me with it .
    Calder’s water jets accepted another heavy chunk of stone from the wiggly green arms of Teos’s avatar. Beneath his calm