4: Witches' Blood Read Online Free PDF Page B

were so many reasons that they shouldn’t even be discussing such a thing.
    “You don’t have to say yes.” Ravishan shied immediately, taking a step away, eyes downcast. “I’ll take you back no matter what you say.”
    “Of course I’ll be your lover,” John said quickly. “I can hardly keep my hands off you now. Do you think anything would stop me once we’re in Nayeshi?”
    Ravishan looked up at him, as if he were startled, then slowly his expression melted into a radiant smile.
    John realized that part of what made Ravishan’s smiles so charming was the sense of surprised delight that they conveyed. He never seemed to expect happiness and that made giving it to him so much more of a pleasure.
      John leaned forward and stole one last quick kiss, then turned and started back down the steep trail.
      Despite the fact that he could have stepped through the Gray Space and reached Rathal’pesha in an instant, Ravishan followed John on foot. When the path grew wide enough, they walked side by side, their arms brushing in an easy communion.

Chapter Thirty-Six

    As the short months of northern spring passed quickly into summer John managed little more than a furtive embrace and one desperate kiss with Ravishan. The rest of his time seemed dominated by Hann’yu’s need for assistance in the infirmary.
    It seemed that Dayyid pushed the ushiri’im harder every day and steadily more and more of them suffered greater injuries. In early spring, John feared that bearing the brunt of the ushiri’im’s wounds would kill him, but his body adjusted and by the time the taye flowers were blooming on the mountainsides he found himself shrugging off even the deep punctures that seemed to plague Fikiri.
      John took some consolation in the fact that he saw less of Ravishan because he was by far the least likely ushiri to be badly injured.
      When Hann’yu didn’t need John to bear the wounds of the ushiri’im, he kept busy with ushvun battle practice and studying holy texts for his formal initiation. Steadily his knowledge of the Payshmura history increased and his skill in dispatching an opponent became a reflex.
    The only interruption of John’s routine came one summer afternoon when Hann’yu attempted to teach him the spells that healed lesser injuries and eased pain. The result was disastrous.
    Hann’yu had brought up two injured lambs for John to practice on. But the moment John had laid his hands on them, their skins had ripped open as their bones tore through their flesh. Shrieks of pain had choked as vertebrae had exploded into their throats. In an instant, they’d become nothing but blood, gristle, and fragments of bone.
    John had staggered back in horror and vomited into an empty water basin.
    “I don’t think you were meant to be a physician,” Hann’yu had remarked, his face pale.
    John had nodded but hadn’t been able to bring himself to look at what he’d done. After that, Hann’yu hadn’t attempted to instruct John in any healing spells, much to John’s relief. He continued to bear wounds, clean beds, bandage injuries, and prepare medicines, but did nothing beyond that.
    Once he passed the trials of his initiation, winning the right to wear a single honor braid, he gained a little more free time.
    Now as the summer neared an end, John took to visiting Samsango down in the kitchens. After long days in the heights of Rathal’pesha, bearing deep wounds, feeling the air tear asunder, and overhearing whispers of oracles and rumors of the destroyer god, he found Samsango’s company relieving. They did simple work and often discussed the mundane news that the other ushvun’im brought up from Amura’taye.
    “Another witch,” Samsango said sadly. He settled his frail, aged body on a bench before one of the weathered cooking tables. “When I was a boy, there was only one witch that had to be burned. Now, it’s nearly one a year.”
    John frowned at the pale flames flickering in the bread oven.