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

mixture down my lord’s throat and leaped back out of immediate reach.
    Arias swallowed and opened his eyes, looking for a moment aware and bewildered.
    “Callo!” he said. “Why are you holding me down?” As soon as the words were out, his eyes closed again, and he slumped into Callo’s hold, unconscious. The color magic receded in a glorious ebbing tide back through his hands and into nonexistence.
    Callo let go. He and Kirian stared at Arias’ still form until they were sure he was no more threat.
    “At last!” said Callo.
    Kirian went to Arias’ side to check his pulse and breathing. She worked with a cool professional calm, eventually straightening the sick man’s pillow and pulling a silk sheet over him.
    “He’ll do, for now,” she said. “Now, Hon Ruthan needs me.”
    Ruthan sat hunched over, in obvious pain. Kirian examined the injured wrist.
    “What does it look like?” she asked Ruthan.
    “Broken,” Ruthan said. “I looked at it while you were busy with Lord Arias there. We’ll need a stiff splint for now, more when we return home.”
    “How does she know?” Callo asked, puzzled. The wrist looked normal to him. There were no bones poking out, and the wrist showed no swelling yet.
    “She knows, my lord,” Kirian said. “She can see it. Here, Ruthan, let me take care of it.”
    Callo left the young woman to the task of splinting and binding up the old Healer’s wrist. He stood over Lord Arias for a moment, noting his friend’s even breathing and the flicker of his eyelids as the mellweed took effect. Then he stepped outside, beckoning Rosh back into the room.
    “It’s safe,” he said. “Find out what he’ll need from the Healers. You’ll stay with him first, and get help to keep watch through the night. I’ll send Chiss, too.”
    “Yes, sir,” Rosh said, and re-entered the room.
    Callo sighed, closed his eyes as he leaned up against the wall, and finally relaxed his shoulders. They did not want to ease after the hours spent in tension. Callo looked down the hall toward his own chamber, wishing for rest. He yawned, then startled when a deep voice interrupted him. It was the steward Borin, finally showing up when all the hard work was done. Callo ordered accommodations for the Healers, and the man faded away down the hallway to a servants’ pantry. Callo heard the clink of pottery from the little room. He felt as if he would fall asleep where he stood.
     

Chapter Three
     
    Kirian finished binding Ruthan’s wrist. She walked over to the bedside. Lord Arias looked peaceful now, no longer feverish and wild as he had been when she walked into the room. She wondered how he would feel if he knew he had broken Ruthan’s wrist. It was hard to say with nobles; most cared for no one but themselves and their riches. Inmay would have it that all righ were selfish fools.
    Perhaps that was why King Martan had to bind them to the Watch, unable to count on his righ mages to serve the land of their own free will. Kirian shrugged. Whatever the reason, this had been a brutal binding, and the man in the bed had almost died from it. She didn’t envy those who were bound, no matter how rich and privileged they were.
    She thought he looked rather handsome, even lying there with his mouth open.
    “Now young Kirian,” Ruthan said, “Those sweets aren’t for you.”
    Kirian grinned. “I know it,” she said.
    “Besides, you have to work for him,” Ruthan said more seriously. “He is a noble and a mage, and thinks no more of you than his father does of the beggars in the street in Sugetre.”
    “I was just looking at him,” she said. Just then the lord’s manservant came back into the room, and Kirian busied herself for the next few minutes giving instructions to the man. Then she and Ruthan took their leave and walked out into the drafty stone hall.
    The nobleman who had been in the room when they arrived leaned against the wall. When he looked up, Kirian took note of him for the first time