Valor of the Healer Read Online Free PDF Page A

of a stallion’s hooves and an old man’s screams —
    The duke’s hand at her throat , the knife in his other slicing at her ears —
    Fire in his skull — don’t , brother , don’t —
    Her own recollections fractured against those from the stranger’s mind. For a horrified instant Faanshi couldn’t tell which was hers, and the shock of that let her find her voice. “Yes, akreshi ,” she whispered. Her ears throbbed through the echoes of the stranger’s pain.
    “I’m so sorry, my dear. You do remember that this is why you must remain locked away?”
    “Yes, akreshi ,” Faanshi repeated. The words were more difficult this time, squeezing up through her throat. To lie was a sin. But the duke had lied when he said she was mad, and he’d locked her in the cellar, and he hurt her with his hands or his knife whenever she failed to say what he wished to hear. When she failed to obey him quickly enough, he gave her to Father Enverly for punishments of blood, and more than once he’d threatened to give her to the Anreulag Herself. But worse than any of these was the thought that he might hurt Ulima, and that Faanshi couldn’t bear. So she whispered the lie, sour though it tasted in her mouth. “I must be locked away because I have fits.”
    “Indeed. If you remember that, my girl, perhaps you’ll come back out to work for me in the Hall yet. But we’ll speak of that another time. For now, I need to ask you a question.”
    “I must remind Your Grace,” Ulima said severely, “that Faanshi has barely recovered her wits, and she requires rest. Would not the akreshi’s time be better spent upon investigating what has befallen his Hall tonight?”
    With a rich, low chuckle, the duke said, “Ah, but that’s exactly my purpose.” He leaned in closer to his kneeling slave. “Someone tried to commit a great sin in my Hall tonight. He dared to put hands upon the duchess, and he sought to take my very life.”
    Faanshi’s world tilted, thrown off balance by those casual words. In the grip of surprise so great that it drove all else from her thoughts—even, for an instant, the stranger’s frantic memories—she couldn’t repress a gasp.
    “I was amazed too, I can assure you. But you needn’t be frightened. I shot the blackguard before he did any real damage. With my own eyes I saw him strike the ground.” The duke flicked his fingers toward his face and slapped one hand into the other to punctuate his last few words.
    The girl swallowed at the impact even as realization sliced through her surprise. Her master spoke of guards who tracked the would-be killer to the back of the Hall, of broken bushes and footprints disturbing the ground around and beneath them, where the night’s rain hadn’t reached. For once, though, his voice ceased to matter. Furtive hope made it worth it to ignore him, though she risked a beating—or worse. For a single instant she didn’t care.
    The man she’d healed had tried to kill the duke.
    As though he sensed her wavering attention, he seized her chin once more and tugged her gaze back up, inquiring with an amiability turned keen as a blade, “You’d like to help me bring a would-be murderer to justice, wouldn’t you, Faanshi?”
    “Yes, akreshi ,” she murmured, holding back a shudder of revulsion at his touch, as well as the wild wish that the stranger had succeeded in his attack. Or that she could unleash her magic upon her master, make him hurt somehow instead of healing him as she’d been made to do before—
    No. To crave such things was a sin too.
    He smiled in that regretful way he sometimes had, which always made her wonder whether she remembered wrong—whether she really had gone mad four years ago in the stables when the old groom had been trampled by a stallion, whether she’d really killed the man instead of healing him. “I was hoping you’d say that. You’re a good girl deep down, and I know you’ll want to do the right thing. All you must do is tell me