Tor offered his most innocent look, and Pel laughed.
Chapter Sixteen
Tor
Rather than visiting the farms and villages, Tor and Pel had spent the last few days helping out near the river, shoring up the embankment that was struggling to keep up with the sheer amount of rain.
Tor knew that Alossa was farther south than Tond, but he hadn’t expected their weather to be quite this radically different. Alossa had… a perfectly normal amount of rain. Yes, there was occasional flooding, but it was nothing like this.
The Great River was rushing down from its source in the mountains between Tond and Bessar in a frothing rush. According to everyone Tor and Pel talked to, it had never been this bad before, and it was straining the embankments that had always ensured the water flowed smoothly away from the towns and villages.
They were working side by side with the villagers and farmers to build it up and strengthen the existing stonework when, with a creaking groan, the embankment burst asunder.
Tor was driven back several steps by the sheer volume of water hammering against the shield he’d flung up, a shimmering, translucent mass through which he could see the dark water.
He grounded his shield into the dirt at his feet and stretched it out along the embankment as far as he could reach, worried that his shield preventing the water from getting out here would only weaken it elsewhere.
If the fields flooded, the people wouldn’t eat. If the villages or the farms flooded, people could die today.
There was a stunned moment where no one seemed to understand what had just happened, and then a ragged cheer went up, and everyone rushed forward to get back to work. Inch by laborious inch, Tor used the shield to push the water slowly back to its path so the others could mend the embankment instead of trying to build a new one.
Sweat trickled down his brow, but he concentrated on the flow of the water, watching it rush by his shield, because that meant his magic was doing exactly what it was supposed to be doing. He made sure the shield was higher than the existing embankment, and everyone scurried around him, rebuilding the stonework, bracing it with stout tree trunks and branches, and making it higher still.
Tor kept the shield up until they were certain that it was enough to keep the water from flooding the area, and then he pulled it back into himself. He listed slightly sideways until Pel got an arm under him, and then he managed to straighten up under his own power.
“I’m fine,” he assured the man.
Pel just shot him a look, and Tor maybe leaned on him a little bit after all. The farmers and villagers came to thank him profusely, and Tor assured them that it had been his pleasure, and he was so glad he’d been here to help.
They headed back to the castle after that, Tor barely able to climb onto Melody. Pel watched him like a hawk.
“I’m fine,” Tor tried again.
“You don’t look fine.”
About to snap, Tor reined in his tongue. Pel knew a bit about what Tor could do, but he’d never seen anything like this. He was worried, not insulting Tor.
“Are you saying I don’t look good?” Tor asked with a pout.
Pel rolled his eyes, but as Tor had hoped, the teasing made him relax a bit.
“Seriously,” Pel said with a little huff.
Tor couldn’t help but smile. “Seriously, then, it was a more extended effort than I’ve made in a while. Water creates a lot of pressure.”
A glance at Pel showed that he was now looking at Tor incredulously.
“How many times has this happened to you?”
“Oh, nothing like this,” Tor said, waving the thought aside. “When we were younger, Var and I figured out that the shields could be used underwater. We could breathe and everything. There wasn’t anything deliberately attacking the shield, but the pressure of the water did the same thing eventually.”
And hadn’t their mother been upset aboutthoseexperiments when she’d realized.
Pel huffed a breath. “The more I get to know you, the more surprised I am that you survived to adulthood.”
“Hey,” Tor protested with a laugh. “We were curious lads, that’s all.”
“I think ‘fools’ is the word you’re looking for,” Pel said tartly.
