The Tainted City Read Online Free PDF Page A

came of age involved more than anchoring the mark-bond that permanently linked their minds and souls. He’d even known Ruslan had created a connection between Kiran’s body and ikilhia to allow magical repair of physical injury. But he’d thought that connection internal to himself, and under conscious control.
    What else had Ruslan done to him without his knowledge?
    “Did they find anything else?” His voice sounded tinny and faint in his own ears.
    “Nothing conclusive,” Lena said. “The healers say your blood reacts strangely when exposed to the substances they use for healing diagnoses, but they don’t know the cause. Pevennar believes that when Ruslan mark-bound you, he altered your body in a variety of subtle ways to make it more congruent with a blood mage’s style of magic.”
    Stevannes issued a derisive grunt. “More congruent with slaughter and torture, you mean. Let me guess,” he said to Kiran. “It feels good when you kill someone, doesn’t it?”
    Power rushing in, sweet and burning, like sunlight after endless dark —Kiran couldn’t get enough air. “I don’t kill people.”
    Stevannes’s mouth curled, his eyes horribly knowing. “Simon Levanian is dead, isn’t he? He tried to use you in a spell, and you destroyed him. And what about the convoy men you killed in the mountains?”
    “The drovers’ deaths were an accident! I tried to take only from animals when I cast to divert the avalanche from our convoy. And I had to cast—if I hadn’t, the slide would have killed hundreds.” Yet Kiran couldn’t meet Stevannes’s gaze. Harken’s gentle, weathered face still haunted his dreams, accompanied by the shadowed figures of the drovers Kiran hadn’t known.
    “So you claim,” Stevannes said. “Do you think a handful of feeble excuses for your murders are enough to make us forget who you truly are?”
    Kiran flinched. Ever since the Council had spared his life, he’d cherished the hope that one day the Alathians’ distrust of him would soften. That they’d stop seeing him as a threat, and allow him the time and materials he’d need to discover some means of dissolving his mark-bond. Yet if Stevannes’s attitude was any indication, that day would be years in coming—if it ever did.
    “ Enough , Stevannes.” Lena’s voice was colder than he’d ever heard it. “I will not warn you again.”
    Stevannes drew himself up. “Forgive me, First Lieutenant. I merely wished to clarify the point.” He thrust the opened letter at her. “Tell Captain Martennan I will indeed search the Parvyi treatises for—” He stopped, his head tilting.
    The floorboards under Kiran’s feet shivered. Chalk rolled along the tabletop to fetch up against his slate as the tremor subsided.
    Stevannes dropped the letter and knelt to place his hands on the floor. Lena mirrored the movement, frowning. Kiran put his own hand on the table and strained his inner senses, but felt nothing beyond the dissonant throb of the block on his power.
    “Another tremor.” The disdain had vanished from Stevannes’ voice.
    “Go,” Lena said. “I’ll check.”
    “Be certain.” Stevannes stood and left without a backward glance.
    “Lena? Another tremor—there’ve been others?” Kiran hadn’t noticed any, but the quake had been so swift and subtle. Locked in concentration on his spell diagram, he might easily have missed it.
    Lena approached, close enough he could have counted the smattering of dark freckles that marked her nose and cheeks. She reached for his temples. He shied away.
    “What are you—”
    “Kiran. This is necessary.” She reached again.
    Reluctantly, Kiran held his ground. Her hands settled lightly on his skin. A slender thread of power snaked through his head, swift and shining as quicksilver.
    “My apologies.” Lena stepped back. “I needed to examine your binding.”
    “You think the tremor was my doing?” The words came out sharper than Kiran had intended, but the notion was so