LITMIR.BIZ

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welfare, or safety you should be worried about, though that’s what lovers should be most worried about.”

      “Yes, what do you know about love?” Conrad twisted in disgust, revealing in an instant all his hitherto carefully concealed feelings for the wizard.

      Well, Douglas was used to being treated that way. His powers are feared. It was the squeamishness of the weak. That’s what he called it. They would dream of acquiring what he alone possesses, but they do not have it and pretend to despise the other’s skill.

      “My love is a charm, not a woman’s slender body. It’s more likely to grow old and you’ll never drag her down the aisle.”

      “Don’t talk about her like that,” Conrad threatened.

      “What’s wrong with that?” Douglas’s eyes sparkled slyly. “Young maidens are like flowers, beautiful one day and withering the next. And one day, when you wake up in bed with an old witch, you won’t know what you fought for.”

      “One more word…” Conrad grabbed the hilt of his sword impetuously.

      “Are you trying to kill me with this toy?” In a moment, the space where the wizard stood was empty. Conrad looked around until he saw his skinny body sitting on the rung of the ceiling, another moment and it had already moved into the opening of the arched window above the second floor of the tower. Douglas sat on the window sill, lazily looking down.

      “Chill out, or I’ll have to pour a bucket of cold water over you,” he remarked, leaving no room for doubt that both bucket and water were to be found in that tower, appearing directly from the void at his command. “You hesitate,” Douglas cocked his head slightly to the side as he watched the prince’s reaction, “and every time you see Rhianon, don’t you ever think that she might scorch you, on or before your wedding bed, with her flame?”

      “You speak as if you envy me because she will be with me and not with you.”

      “That is a moot point,” Douglas, not at all frightened by the height that separated him from the floor, jumped down and stood before the bewildered prince. “All I can say is that I’ve never seen her before, and I have no idea if I’ll like her.”

      “I can’t help liking her,” Conrad protested confidently. He was stupid, like all lovers. Douglas gave a contemptuous chuckle.

      “She is not a book of witches. I only get passion from books.”

      “You can have as many as you like if you help me.”

      There was so much the boy didn’t understand. Besides, he was entirely in his hands. They must have looked strange, the overdressed but so tired prince and the ever-young sorcerer with the dyed-black hair. Two young men with different destinies and Douglas sensed someone else standing beside them, remaining invisible and impossible to drive him away because his name was Fate. The wizard could only hope that this fate was following the young prince and not himself. If they were bound together by a common cause, it did not mean that their fates would soon be intertwined so closely that the black menace that loomed over one would shadow the other. In addition, Douglas did not consider a small sorcerer’s favor to be a big deal. He often did petty favors, casting spells, casting spells, depriving people of their minds, making them sick, punishing those who did not please him, or fulfilling the orders of others. It was all nonsense. He could do so much more. Each service had its own price. What would he charge Conrad? Douglas smirked carnivorously as he pondered this.

      “Well, you’ve ruined her scarf,” Conrad said as if he’d just now noticed the bloodstains, and he looked discouraged. “How could you.”

      Douglas exhaled sharply. The stars say this whole kingdom could soon go to hell, and this clumpy boy is bemoaning the fact that some rag is ruined.

      “You know, sometimes you have to make sacrifices to get what you want,” he hinted cautiously.

      “But not like this…”

      “What do you want to have, the girl or a ribbon of her hair? If only the latter, I can get it for you now without difficulty.”

      “Indeed you can?” Conrad looked up at him with interest.

      What a fool. Douglas almost cursed. Even the spirits circling the distant ceiling seemed to be laughing at his stupid client. Good thing they weren’t throwing scraps of books at him. They like to make fun of those whom they themselves have almost driven mad. With some experience in casting spells, Douglas had no doubt that something supernatural could be the cause of such love. He could have offered his help and slightly cooled the hot blood of the lover, but it would not have been to his advantage. Sick of his dream, Conrad was willing to do anything. If he were cured of it, he would be harder to control.

      “Yeah, I wouldn’t want to meet this Rhianon, if she’s capable of depriving others of their willpower,” he muttered to himself. He wondered if she was a fairy. They were the only ones who could make mortal young men go mad, but he shrugged the thought off instantly. There was something even more dangerous here than an encounter with fairies. The stars revealed little to him, but everything. Yet even that was enough to make Douglas wary.

      “You won’t want her ribbon or herself when you find out what she’s done?”

      “Oh, come on…”

      “I mean it,” Douglas gave the prince a long look. “The scarf you’re clutching in your hands now has the blood of several birds and other creatures that had to be slaughtered to attack the trail. You know spells require a relationship. But that’s not what I mean… The price of those tiny lives is nothing compared to what your princess can bring to Loretta.”

      Conrad could barely restrain himself from speaking angrily.

      “I told you I don’t care what it costs,” he grumbled.

      “I remember. I have a good memory. I don’t forget anything that’s happened in the past, but I can also tell the future.”

      “Then predict that I will succeed. And if you can’t predict it, then conjure it up.”

      “I wish it were that easy.”

      “It’s complicated for you,” Conrad said angrily. “Have you even found out where she is? You still haven’t told me where she is.”

      “It would have been better if you hadn’t known,” Douglas shrank back, and the stiff dark strands fell to his forehead and covered his eyes. And well, his interlocutor wouldn’t see the golden spark that flashed through his pupils.

      “Where is she?” Conrad darted forward, catching the wizard by the shoulder before he could even look away from the multicolored, magnetic eyes, one dark and the other blue.

      Douglas grinned faintly at the corners of his lips.

      “She’s with someone else. Do you understand?”

      The news struck like a sword. Only Conrad recovered quickly. Passion gave way to rage. He squeezed the wizard’s shoulder as if the man were his rival. He could kill now.

      “I don’t believe that.”

      “You just don’t want to believe it.”

      For a moment Conrad looked away. He tried to calm himself, and he couldn’t. His fingers clutched frantically at the hilt of his sword trembled a few times.

      “Very well,” the prince said, as he struggled to contain his outburst. “Now I have two questions for you: where is she, and who is he?”

      “Well, he has blond hair and blue eyes…” Douglas didn’t know how to lay the whole truth beside him. “It began here.”

      He led the prince to a map spread out on the table and pointed to the right place.

      “You see this path, highlighted in red. I underlined it for you. This is the path she took, even though your warriors didn’t find anyone there, but she passed through

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