The Sorcerer's Bride

He felt a bit regretful that he hadn"t been able to say what he had wanted to this morning. The words, though, had refused to leave his tongue. He would try again later, every day until he could finally get it out.

Licking his lips, he headed to go speak with Jayesh. Though he already had a slight idea of something he needed to do, he needed to see if there was anything that absolutely had to get done.

When he found his best friend he asked him if there was anything pressing. Jayesh couldn"t think of anything.

"Alright, then, I will go ahead and check the south boundary stone then." He had already checked the others over the course of the past week. He had saved this one for last due to geography reasons. Of all the stones the southern one was on the safest boarder. Therefore it made sense to save it for last.

Teleporting there was fairly easy. The men stationed there were alert even though there was no real threats.

Recognizing him, they let him pa.s.s. Finding the hollow tree the stone was supposed to be in he pulled it out. And nearly dropped it in shock.

There were cracks all along it. This was not good...

Having one boundary stone down meant the others would have to work harder. This would lead to them draining faster, and if it lasted to long the defense system could entirely fail.

That wasn"t the worst of it though. Boundary stones didn"t just break. They were nearly indestructible. In order to break one you had to really try.

While Kaldrek could fix it, it would take time and a lot of magic. Meanwhile, there was a few things he could do for the protection of the kingdom. He could put some of his own magic directly into the boundary. While it would only work temporarily, it was necessary in this situation. He emptied most of his magic for this purpose.

Walking up to the man in charge he alerted him to what had happened. The commander was shocked and said that he would make sure that they kept careful watch.

He slipped the broken stone into his pocket and went back to the castle. It was early afternoon now. Zylvia would probably have gotten onto him about skipping lunch. The thought made him smile despite the seriousness of what he had just found out.

He directly headed to go talk to Jayesh. As much as he needed to start fixing the stone, that someone had broken it needed to be told to the king as soon as possible.

"Jayesh I have some really bad news." Kaldrek walked into his best friend"s study.

Jayesh looked up and sent away the advisor he had been talking to. "What is it?"

In answer Kaldrek put the broken stone on the desk, "Someone snuck past the guards stationed on the south border and tampered with our defenses."

The king stared at the stone, "Why?"

Kaldrek shook his head helplessly, "I have no idea. We aren"t at war with anyone, and I don"t think you"ve upset anyone - at least not to that decree."

"Without knowing the why it"s a little hard to catch the culprit." Jayesh ran a hand through his hair in frustration, "Can you fix it?"

"I should be able to. My magic is fairly compatible with its." The stones had been created by his grandfather, after all. And though the bloodline had changed a little, the specialty in abjuration had not.

Jayesh nodded, "I"ll have people look into it. Focus on fixing the stone. I doubt anyone else even has an inkling of how to go about doing that. How long will it take?"

Kaldrek considered the question. There was a variety of considerations, his manna pool, recovery-which was highly boosted by Zylvia, and how damaged it was, which was a lot. "I am not sure. Anywhere between three days to a week." This was mostly a guess as he had never had to do such a thing before.

Jayesh nodded, "Its a good thing you decided to check."

Kaldrek smiled wryly as he prepared to go start preparing to work on fixing the stone.

Before he made it to the door a pale faced Zylvia walked in, followed by the queen.