Color Mage (Book 1) by Anne Marie Lutz Read Free Book Online

reached out the back of his hand to check Arias’ forehead. He drew his hand away fast, shocked at the heat.
    “Gods!” he said. “I’ll get a Healer. Stay put, will you? Just for a moment. I will expect you to be here when I return, Arias!” Callo had no confidence that middle-aged, plump Rosh could restrain Lord Arias if it came to that.
    Arias lifted a hand in acknowledgment, so Callo felt fairly safe in leaving him for a few minutes. He pulled the door closed behind him. A footman loitered in the corridor.
    “You!” called Callo. “I need a Healer called, right now. There is a Healer?”
    “In the village, lord,” the footman said. “Hon Ruthan.”
    “Get her, now!” Callo ordered. “Lord Arias is becoming very ill. Tell the Healer she may be up here for some time. Tell her it is a binding fever.”
    The footman’s eyes widened and he turned to go at a run down the corridor. Callo remembered the rocky cliff path and hoped it would not take candlemarks for the Healer to arrive. The fever had come upon Arias so quickly, and seemed so high, that he feared for his friend’s life.
    He returned to the room and ordered Rosh to do what he could to make Arias comfortable. He sent for wine and ice from the cellars, but Arias would not touch them. Rosh stripped the covers off the bed so Arias could lie on cool sheets, but his fever still raged.
    Arias began to mumble to himself, his words thick. He seemed only sporadically aware of the presence of others. Soon his fever began burning away his control on his magery, and a cocoon of disturbed color began wrapping his restless hands. Callo was forced to retreat to the door as the occasional sparks of magery glimmered from the bed hangings and washed violently up the walls in a churning sea of hues. He dreaded that he would soon feel the subtle graying of the world that would indicate that Arias was pulling strength from the living things around him, but at least so far Arias retained enough control to resist.
    Rosh edged farther and farther away from the bed. He finally begged leave to go. “It’s dangerous, sir!”
    “You’re needed,” Callo responded shortly.
    “Sir!” Rosh pleaded. His eyes fixed on the shifting energies pooling around the feverish mage.
    “He won’t hurt you,” Callo said, although he was far from sure of that.
    “He won’t hurt you, my lord. He has no idea I am even here . May I wait outside, sir?”
    “Oh, go ahead!” snapped Callo.
    Then the door swept open and Lord Mikati Alkiran, Arias’ father, walked in without waiting for permission. Lord Mikati had dark hair and a lined, handsome face. His own Collar, set there many years ago by the King, shone on his neck. He stared at his son for a moment and then caught sight of Callo, leaning against the wall.
    “You!” Lord Mikati said.
    Callo gave a slight bow. “Yes, my lord,” he said.
    “How is Lord Arias doing?”
    “Very ill, so far. It would be much better if this Healer could be hurried along, my lord,” Callo said. “A Collar, at Arias’ age . . .”
    Mikati shrugged. “It is his duty, after all,” he said. “He should have been Collared long ago.”
    Callo nodded. “Is there anything you can do, my lord? Can you suppress this magery? It will make it hard for the healer to work.”
    “No. Arias is strong, and I can’t risk depleting my own energy to control him. I must Watch tonight.”
    It was an Alkiran’s prime duty—Lord Mikati’s bound duty, in fact—to Watch toward Ha’las for the Black Tide. Nothing would stay him from it. That was the nature of the binding put upon the Seagard Alkirani by King Martan Sharpeyes. From now on, if he survived this violent binding, Lord Arias would also let nothing stop him from the task of the Watch for the Black Tide. Arias’ life had changed for good.
    “Lord Forell? Perhaps Lord Eamon?” Callo asked, naming Arias’ brother and uncle, who had spent their lives here and been bound to the same service as