Read Michelle West - Sun Sword 06 - The Sun Sword for Free Online

Andaru failed to notice. Or appeared to fail; she wasn't certain. She wondered
if she should have sent Teller instead. He was far, far better at reading people
than she had ever been, and while she'd improved over the years, so had he.
    The guards left them at the doors.
    Master Andaru turned to Carver, Angel, and Gregori. "If you will not
surrender your weapons," he said, "you will be required to remain here."
    "Finch?"
    "Leave them."
    Angel was already unbuckling his sword. He had no intention of being left
behind. Carver joined him. Gregori did likewise, divesting himself of the
daggers he carried. After an awkward pause, Carver and Angel did the same.
    Finch surrendered hers with less reluctance; it had never been her job to
fight. Daine carried no weapon.
    "I should warn you, Daine, that Master Levec is not in the best of moods."
    So what else is new
? Finch was wise enough not to say the words out
loud.
    "The plague?" Daine asked.
    "The same. Have you heard of it in Terafin?"
    Daine nodded quietly. He started to speak, thought better of it, and fell
silent.
    This time, Healer Andaru did notice. "So," he said softly.
    Daine reddened. He seemed to have shed years in the archway that defined
inside from outside.
    "Best of moods or no, he'll see you."
    Daine nodded.
    The older healer turned to leave, and then turned back. His ex-pression was
unreadable. "Do you understand Alowan's choice, Daine?"
    "Better than I did when I was a student here," was the quiet reply.
    "And when you see the cost, will you remember what you understand now?"
    "I… don't know. But I can't come back."
    "No," the old man said quietly.
    "I miss the House."
    "The House misses you," Master Andaru replied gently. "And we will never
cease to regret our failure. We are better protected now than we have been since
the founding," he added. "Too little, for your sake."
    "I'm not the only healer to be lost. I'm one of the few to be recovered."
Daine straightened his shoulders. "Master Andaru, I'm not unhappy."
    "They treat you well?"
    "They hardly notice me at all," was the sheepish reply. He glanced at Finch.
"But yes, the people who matter treat me well."
    "They had better."
    Finch held her breath as the doors to Levec's offices opened wide.
    They were not like the Terafin offices. Instead of fine desks, finer chairs,
tables that looked like they were made by the maker-born at the dawn of time, it
boasted beds, long, narrow cots, and cupboards that would do a kitchen proud on
every conceivable inch of wall.
    "ATerafin," Master Levec said, and she jumped.
    A man that large should
not
be able to move so damn silently.
    "Master Levec."
    "Have you come to visit Adam?"
    Her smile was rueful. "Yes," she told him, and then, when his frown
deepened—and it never left his face—she added, "but not just for that."
    "Did someone call me?"
    Adam appeared from behind Levec's broad chest. He was almost spider thin; he
seemed to have grown three inches, and his hair was a shocking disarray of loose
curls. But his eyes were the same: haunted. Isolated.
    She smiled at him. Up at him; he seemed so young that she often glanced down
instinctively. "Adam," she said in Torra.
    "Healer Levec has said that you're almost ready to—to leave the house of
healing."
    The boy's eyes brightened; his smile was unfettered by suspicion, by
wariness, by any of the things that had hemmed the den in when they were his
age. "He says I'm to live with you."
    She nodded, smiling in spite of herself. "We're not as grouchy as he is,
that's for sure."
    "May I remind you," the healer said, in rough and accented Torra, "that
speaking about me as if I were not present is considered unwise, not to mention
rude?"
    "Yes, sir," she said.
    He rolled his eyes. But he grabbed Adam's shoulder and dragged him around.
Finch noticed that he did not immediately release him. Adam had come that far.
    Far enough that he didn't reach out to grab her hand or her arm. He wanted
to; she