Aithur looked bored—painfully, dramatically bored—as he tossed a small glass ball up into the air and caught it again with a flicker of blue light. The same motion, over and over. His sharp eyes followed the spinning sphere, reflecting faint glimmers of his magic, but his mind was far away, replaying the last twenty minutes of absolute nothingness.
He sighed. Loudly.
The sound echoed around the quiet room that the temple had provided—one far too luxurious for his taste, with cream-colored walls, velvet couches, and a carved mahogany table set with untouched fruit and silver cups. A faint smell of incense hung in the air, sweet and distracting.
Across the room stood an apprentice and a temple guard, both standing rigidly straight near the door. Their expressions were caught somewhere between alert and terrified—because the small ball that the Duke kept throwing seemed to come a little closer to their heads each time.
