"Michelle West - The Sun Sword 1 - The Broken Crown" - читать интересную книгу автора (West Michelle)

тАЬHealer!тАЭ she cried, pointing to a place beyond the vulnerable healerтАЩs back.

Askeyia spun again, lighter on her feet, surer now that the pounding of heart was without
question her heart, not his. And as she gazed at a man who was moving from the center of the
Ring beneath which she stood, she remembered what тАШLessoтАЩs mother had said.

HeтАЩs hurt my boyтАФ

No healer had ever come out of the call with such speed, such terrible urgency. Was it тАШLessoтАЩs
fear? Her own vulnerability? The weakness of a healing? She turned, handing the child to his
mother, to his other mother, and then turned again, a single word having passed between them:
Run.

He was well-dressed, but not so well-dressed that he needed guards or a palanquin; she thought
him a Southern noble, some minor clansman, not the valley Voyani whose descendants now
crowded many of the hundred holdings in their attempts to make rootsтАФa place for themselves
that their Southern compatriots neither wanted nor claimed. His hair was dark, and his skin quite
pale; his shoulders were broad and his hands unblemished. His teethтАФrare enough in a man his
ageтАФwere perfect, as was his brow; he had the look of power about him.

He carried no obvious weapon, wore no visible armor.

In the light of day, he should have looked like just another man, another foreigner.

But the light of day shunned him.

She glanced once over her shoulder, just once, to make sure her child had escaped, and then she,
too, ran.

Light, as distinct as a bird call, she heard his chuckle cross the Common as if nothing at all
separated them.


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Askeyia aтАЩNarin was good at running. A life of relative luxury and indolence had not robbed her
of the skillтАФor the instincts that had honed it. Air crested her open lips and slid down her throat
in a rush. The cobbled stones beneath her feet were hard and solid; they provided an even ground
with no treacherous dips or holes, no unseen roots or branches.

As a healer, she had a value.

It was beyond money, although money was paid for it. Untrained, unknown, and unregistered,
she was worth half of the naval fleetтАЩs best ships to the right man, if he could catch her and
remove her from view before he could be stopped. It was, of course, completely illegal; the
punishments for kidnapping and forced indenture were almost as harsh as those for murder. But
murder didnтАЩt stop, either.