Read I Dare for Free Online Page B

bit of healing. Thus released, Sheather moved away down the room, to stand by the bedside of his sister, Miri Robertson.

    "Understand, this will be a very small thing, in comparison to what we propose on behalf of our brother and sister," Edger said.

    "I understand perfectly, sir. What we wish to prove here is the concept. If my leg shatters under your care, it is an inconvenience, quickly put right by some time in the 'doc, and we have our answer without risk to either our brother or our sister, both of whom are as precious to me as I know they are to you." He paused and tipped his head. "I hope you won't be offended by my screams, if it should happen to occur that my leg does shatter."

    "I believe you will not find it necessary to scream, Shan yos'Galan," Edger said solemnly. "I ask you now to open your eyes and hold yourself to silence."

    Shan yos'Galan straightened and closed his outer eyes. Sheather heard the song of his power intensify even as Edger opened his mouth and sang the two notes required.

     

    SHAN COMPOSED himself and dropped his inner shields, watching with Healer's eyes.

    At this exposure, the turtles stood revealed as systems of all but intolerable complexity, informed by a method entirely outside of his understanding, stretching far beyond his ability to read, yet tantalizingly familiar, as if . . .

    All at once he had it: Himself, just home from Healer Hall and quite vain of his new-trained powers, striding up to Korval's Tree, the redoubtable Jelaza Kazone, and flinging his shields down like a dare.

    Immediately, he had been swept into a long, slow, greenness that spiraled on—forever, or so it seemed to his shortsighted eyes. Every turn of the spiral was unique, rich with nuance and surprise. Ensorcelled, Shan hung, and watched, and was delighted—until Val Con knocked him into the sodden grass, and lay across his chest, shouting in his ear that it was " . . .  raining , and our mother has been looking for you every where!"

    Val Con .

    Shan took another breath, deliberately imposing calm, sternly refusing the impulse to enclose himself in puny protections. This was for Val Con's life; he dared not make an error—of any kind. His knee ached, a little; Healer eyes saw the irritation as an angry red glow. He allowed the minor pain to remain within his consciousness.

    Faintly, a note sounded. He heard it as the warm wash of rain against his naked skin; saw it as a bell tone, attenuating . . . The first note was joined, complimented, enlarged, by a second, inspiring the gentle shower to rain in earnest as the tone coalesced into a ball that grew dense, denser, dense to the point of implosion . . .

    The music was ended. His knee was pain-free. A quick scan showed an entire absence of the angry glow of injury that had surrounded it.

    Shan opened his eyes.

    "Well?" Miri rasped.

    He turned to look at her.

    "Perfectly well," he said, and took a harder breath, deliberately strengthening his hold on the physical world. Slowly, he brought his protections up; and found himself saddened to lose sight of the turtles' vast incomprehensiveness.

    If they can heal Val Con of the effects of the poison. If he can walk. If he can fly . . .  he thought exuberantly; and then, more soberly. If it fails, we may lose both.

    He stepped to the bed and bent down to take Miri's thin, cold hand between two of his.

    "I give you the judgment of your thodelm, Korval," he said, in the mode used when addressing one's delm.

    She blinked. "I ain't Korval."

    "The Code teaches us that lifemates are one melant'i in two bodies. Val Con is nadelm—Korval-in-future. You are true lifemates, bound by the soul. My own father died of his lifemate's death-wound. You speak for both of your lives in this—and for Korval entire."

    She paused, her eyes losing a little focus, as if she consulted her memory of the Code, which was ridicul—

    Her gaze sharpened. "It is," she said, her voice pure and firm in the