Free Sword of Jashan (Book 2) by Anne Marie Lutz Page A

him?”
    “Hell, yes,” Callo said. “I refuse to see Yhallin Magegard.”
    “Magegard?”
    “Popular name,” Chiss explained to her. “Sort of a joke on the Collared Lords. Yhallin treats and restrains color mages who are insane.”
    Kirian looked at Callo again, flushing a little. “I meant no offense. But you don’t even realize how this is overtaking you, Callo. You show signs that you will lose control of it all. There is danger to you and to others around you.”
    Callo shoved the drug-induced sleepiness away and got up. “It will be under control. The color magery—I am working on. The psychic magery is locked down as tight as ever it was before all this started.”
    Kirian flushed. “Perhaps you are wrong about that,” she said.
    “Look, I am not yet insane,” Callo argued.
    She relaxed from her unexpected wariness a little and smiled. “All the righ are crazy, my lord.”
    “Indeed,” Chiss said with a wealth of meaning in the single word.
    “I am shocked to hear you say so,” Callo said. It was easy to slip back into the banter, letting the pain and the terrifying assault on his senses be pushed into the background. He began to put his arm around Kirian, but she stepped away from him and began to gather up her Healer’s bag, not looking at him.
    His stomach growled again, and Chiss said: “I think you are feeling better, my lord.”
    “Thank you both,” Callo said. “I don’t know what I would have done without your aid.”
    Chiss smiled, but Kirian said nothing. After they left the room Callo went down to breakfast feeling almost as if nothing had happened—except for the troubling memory of how Kirian had shied away from his embrace.
    That afternoon Callo joined Lord Ander in the boy’s workroom and watched him finish a portrait of his tutor while waiting for the boy to be free. Sugetre was a center for the arts, Queen Efalla encouraging them with her patronage, so Callo had seen examples of the finest drawing, painting and sculpture. Ander’s work was not as dainty and highly-finished as the work now popular in the capital, but it had a vibrant life that made it appealing.
    The painting Ander was finishing of the tutor Shan-il was very good. He had caught the awareness in the man’s eyes, and even the texture of his black hair. Callo looked at the tutor with an eye accustomed to sizing up an opponent, saw the lean muscles and graceful movements, and thought swordsman . He wondered what such a man was doing in this position, teaching the boy about mathematics and astronomy and politics, and the history of the Collared Lords.
    Perhaps Dria Mar understood Ander’s weakness, and had tried to get a tutor to hone his leadership abilities. Manipulative as Sharpeyes was, at least the King was strong. He kept his unruly lords and mages from breaking out into rebellion, thus protecting the ordinary people of Righar. Ander was likeable and intelligent, and apparently a skilled color mage. In spite of the ability he would have to magically bind the righ , he would need more than those attributes to rule over Righar’s demanding nobility and bind its powerful mages to his will.
    Ander turned his head as he heard a knock at the door. “Yes, who is it?”
    Lord Zelan’s personal guard walked in. “My lord Ander. Lord Zelan awaits you at the stables, for the Hunt.”
    “I’m not going on the stupid Hunt!”
    “Lord Zelan said I was to bring you now, my lord, even if I had to carry you over my shoulder.”
    Ander’s thin face flamed. “How dare you!” He cut himself off, waving the guard away. “I’d like to see you try, Obin. You don’t dare handle me like that. You tell my lord father he and the Hunt can . . .”
    “My lord!” the guard said.
    “Lord Ander,” Callo interrupted. “Surely this man will be disciplined if he returns without you.”
    Ander’s jaw was still outthrust, his eyes glittering. “There aren’t any gods-cursed icetigers left. I won’t go!”
    “Then tell