Free TheDutyofPain by Viola Grace Page A

agony and soothing them into normalcy. Once his brain was calm, she stroked his limbs, placing a block between his nerve endings and the pain he was in. The procedure took five minutes and was hampered by her chains, but when she was done, the duke lay there panting.
    “It will not be long now.” The duke took her hand and kissed it.
    “I know. I will be here as long as you need me.” She raised her cuffs. “I have no choice.”
    “I wish Inor-Thak was not forcing you into those chains, but when the pain takes me, he runs our world.”
    She nodded and folded her hands in her lap as the dressers and bathers streamed in to get him ready for his time on the throne. At the meal break, she would give him another treatment. Until that time, she had to remain on the upper balcony looking down and watching her patient.
    She hated the waiting time. She always thought of her family and the life lost to her during the waiting time.
    Alda watched as the duke’s movements eased until he seemed a healthy man of eighty-five again. His robes were elaborate and the makeup applied to him gave him the same blank expression as all his courtiers. Alda sat quietly while he was prepared and ate his meal, her face emotionless.
    It was the same every morning—they brought her to him, she took his pain and was not allowed to leave until the duke was on his throne and no onlookers were watching his rooms. Today was no exception.
    When the duke left, he paused at the door and gave her a sorrowful look and a small wave. She nodded her head respectfully, and when she managed to blink the tears from her eyes, he was gone.
    She held the pain in. The electrochemical response that told a body something was very wrong was something she could manipulate. It was what made her a Pain Taker. What no one seemed to realise was that she kept what she took. She knew the agony of the duke. She lived with it in the core of her very different mind.
    When the guard at the door gave her the nod, she got to her feet, straightened her skirts and her chains before gliding as smoothly as possible out the door and up to her viewing area. Six guards were stationed to keep her from getting away, so she was forced to stand and watch her patient hold court. It did give her a bit of a thrill to watch him upright and strong. It was such a change from the way she saw him every morning that her heart soared just a little every time he made a ruling or pounded his fist.
    Today, there were representatives from the Citadel who wanted permission to investigate the population for possible candidates.
    Duke Ralen-Croth lifted his gaze for a moment and met hers. He smiled and nodded to the four men and women in robes. “Please. There are many here with exceptional talents, and if the worlds need them, it would be a pity to keep them to ourselves.”
    “That is a very enlightened attitude, Duke Ralen-Croth.” The speaker for the Citadel bowed respectfully.
    “Thank you, it has been something I became aware of only when my illness began to run its course.”
    Alda’s eyes were wide. He never mentioned being ill in front of the court.
    The high chancellor leaned in and spoke to him in rapid, low tones.
    The duke didn’t lower his voice. “Shut up, Chancellor. I live each day knowing that tomorrow agonizing pain will grip me. She comes and takes it away, but I don’t want her to lose her life in service to the royal house. You should not have chained her, Inor. That was not well done of you.”
    The high chancellor looked up toward Alda’s hiding spot, and his expression was not pleasant.
    She kept her pose, and the heavy court makeup on her face made her into an anonymous statue. The makeup had been harder to get used to than the chains.
    Every morning, the attendants got her up and into the shower, brushed her hair and fixed her nails. Once her hair was dry, fixed and in place, she had to sit while the makeup artist for the duke painted over her medium-brown skin, drew on