Free Michelle West - Sun Sword 06 - The Sun Sword by Michelle West

that; he picked her up, turned her around, and caught her from behind. His beard
spilled over her forehead; his chin braced her skull. He was stale with the
scent of old sweat, and she inhaled deeply.
    It reminded her of the living, that smell. It reminded her that there existed
men like Levec, who worked, and continued to work, when a life of idle wealth
was theirs for the taking; it reminded her that there were people to whom the
House and its political fate was of little import in the grand scheme of things.
She hated herself for needing the reminder, but she clung to it anyway, until
The Terafin moved.
    She did not stir; she did not come to wakefulness as a sleeper did; she did
not, in fact, wake at all. But her body was racked by sudden convulsions.
    Morretz cried out, wordless.
    Levec's arms tightened a moment, and then he let Finch go, as if she were her
namesake and could simply fly for cover. She did, leaping out of his way.
    Adam spoke. His motions were entirely reactions; his hands followed the
jerking rise and fall of The Terafin's face. "Master Levec," he said, all
pretense at Weston annunciation lost.
    Finch was shocked that he realized Levec was present at all. He had never
once opened his eyes.
    But Levec accepted what seemed impossible. He bracketed The Terafin. Made her
seem small and frail. "I'm here," he said, his Torra as atrocious as Adam's
Weston pronunciation.
    "I need your help."
    "What?"
    "He says he needs your help," Finch told him.
    Levec hesitated.
    "
Levec
." Adam's eyes flew open. " I
need your help now
! "
    The larger man's hands reached out. They pushed The Terafin's bed-dress
aside, exposing ivory flesh. He took a deep breath, and then brought both of his
palms into contact with her skin.
    Morretz did not utter a word.
    "What must I do?" the master healer whispered.
    Finch translated, flying at Torra as if it were the cage in which she might
at last be safe.
    "Heal her," Adam snapped. "Do what I cannot do."
    Levec's brow—his single dark brow—rose. He did not argue with Adam, but had
they been alone, Finch had no doubt he Would have.
    Where Adam had been beautiful in his healing repose, Levec was not, but there
was about the older healer a sense of solidity, a reality, that Adam failed to
invoke. Levec's brow lowered; his lids followed. She saw sweat bead his
forehead, glistening in the creases decades of habitual frown had etched there.
    Warriors, she thought them, shorn of sword and armor, but no less committed
for the lack.
    The Terafin
screamed
.
    Adam joined her.
    Levec's lip bled.
    Finch started to move, and Ellerson snapped a single sharp syllable into the
blended cries.
    Her name.
    She jumped back from the bed, and hit Teller's slender chest. His hand caught
her shoulder,- steadying her.
    And then The Terafin's scream stopped. As abruptly as it started, the
terrible song left her voice; only Adam and Levec were left to their twinned
expression of pain, and Finch thought it was because they were no longer aware
of the noises they made.
    She had seen healings before. She had seen death denied. Nothing in that
experience prepared her for this one.
    The Terafin's eyes opened. They were silver-gray, and they shone like
polished metal.
    "Morretz," she said, her teeth chattering.
    "I'm here." And he was. Although he was not a small man, he managed to find
room for himself by her side; his hand reached out, and then withdrew. The
effort was costly.
    "What day is it?"
    "It is dawn on the twenty-fifth day of Corvil."
    She nodded, her body spasming. She could not force herself to speak loudly,
but she was The Terafin; she understood the art of making her will known above
the din of swords and the screams of the dying. The cries of two healers
presented her with little difficulty.
    "Terafin." Morretz spoke the word as if he had never expected to have it
acknowledged again.
    Finch looked away. She had once walked in on Carver and a guest, and she had
been