Vision of Light [The Renegades 1] by Amanda Hilton

assuaged. “It behaved well,” she replied, as if the dagger was sentient. He did not even look surprised. She caressed the inscription along the scabbard with reverence, feeling its warmth.
    "I saw where you finally came back on land,” he noted. “You swam a very long way."
    "How did you know I could swim?"
    "The sorceress who abducted you is a powerful Fluid element."
    "Is? She is still alive!” Aislan nearly jumped with her excitement. “Do you know her?"
    "I know of her. I...” he paused, and then finally said, “I am tasked to find her, so I know everything I needed to know about her."
    Eager in her quest for knowledge, Aislan leaned closer. “What do you mean—tasked to find her? Do you know where she might be?"
    "Why?"
    "I want to find her, too."
    Rubbing a hand across his mouth, he studied her. He looked at her as if he wanted to devour her, a hungry, predatory gleam in his eyes, eyes no longer cold or unfathomable. Aislan licked her lips. The dagger had made her body too hot. A shameful wetness trickled between her legs. Feeling her cheeks flaming in shame, she looked down at her feet, shifting to ease her discomfort.
    He seemed to be in a conversational mood, in no rush to attempt to seduce her. While she grew up, Aislan's father had kept a careful watch whenever men appeared around her. After she had married, the possessive Hayton Temple kept her under guard most of the time, fearing she would stray, an unfounded fear because Aislan was frigid, or so she had been told. She might be frigid with Hayton because he forced her, but her imagination played a different game with her fantasy lover.
    Lucien continued, “Why do you wish to find Narisse? She will kill you."
    Sex had never been high on her list, so Aislan could not believe she found the thought of sex more interesting than a conversation about Narisse. She had thought of Narisse almost every day since she had learned the identity of the mad witch who had tried to kill her.
    She knew she sounded insane even as she answered, “I need someone who will train me, who will take me as apprentice. Who else will understand what is wrong with me?"
    As suspected, he looked at her as if she had lost her mind. “You wish to apprentice under a renegade sorceress bound to be executed by the Circle if captured?"
    "Why should she be considered a renegade? Is that why you look for her, so you can execute her?” Aislan could not help defending her decision. “She is no more wicked or violent than any sorcerer I had the misfortune to meet today."
    His expression did not even flicker. “She practiced sorcery through human sacrifices. Mayhap she still does."
    "And ‘tis forbidden—sacrificing humans?"
    "Yes, ‘tis frowned upon by the Church and by the populace to sacrifice humans to further our power."
    She could not determine if he was serious or sarcastic. “What about taking human lives? You had no reservation about killing."
    "Only by royal decree."
    "Sorcerers have all the power, and yet you forbid the killing of mortals?” She did not believe him.
    "Sorcerers are mortals, too. The Circle forbids using sorcery on the general populace unless under the orders of the king. There are not as many sorcerers as you might think."
    "What about the innocent people this morn, the helpless mortals you killed."
    "I only killed your husband,” he said softly, watching her reaction. Looking at the dagger, Aislan wondered if he expected her to ask him why he had executed Hayton. She should have wept, but she had never behaved according to expectations. Anyhow, she no longer had a soul, or so the priests told her. The Church had damned her and declared her insane.
    Instead of fearing the man who had killed her husband, Aislan's mind wandered to those many nights she had pretended he was inside her body instead of her husband's, making her more pliant so that the physical ordeal of Hayton's conjugal rights would be more bearable. She had denied her husband, and yet she had