Healing Fire Read Free Page A

Jules didn’t sleep. He didn’t eat. He didn’t do anything but lie in his bed. Lem knew how to defend Jules from outside threats. He did not know how to defend the prince from himself.
    The little prince was never cruel. He barely spoke, he barely moved. Lem had been told that Jules used to spend most of his time reading, staying in his suite with his bodyguard Mabon.
    Lem, of course, knew Mabon—all the bodyguards knew each other by sight—but not very well. The strong dragon had been older and had had more training than Lem currently did when he’d been called to the prince’s side almost two hundred years ago.
    Lem knew they were very big wings indeed that he had to fill. He also knew, without question, that the blame would fall upon him should Jules die. And rightly so. He was the prince’s protector. He just wasn’t sure how he could protect Jules from himself, for surely that was what the danger was at this time. It made Lem think. What would Mabon have done?
    There was a private courtyard off of Jules’ rooms, meant solely for the prince’s pleasure. Lem knew that no one else was allowed back there, not even gardeners. The area was completely cut off from the rest of the castle by high, windowless walls, and the only entrance was through the door in Jules’ quarters. Perhaps a little air, a change of scenery would be good. Decided, Lem went to Jules, the prince still curled up in his nest as he had been earlier this morning. And yesterday, and the day before that, and the week before that, since Lem had been here.
    “Your Highness, let’s go out to the courtyard. I can hear the fountain, but have never seen it.”
    Jules looked at him for a moment, the green eyes beautiful, if so sad. One slender hand waved as if to say, “go.”
    Grunting, Lem girded his loins against his own training, which said he didn’t do this, that he was never to touch the prince if he could avoid it. He bent, picking Jules right up out of his nest.
    “What?” Jules sputtered.
    Dragons needed sustenance, sunlight. They needed it. Lem clung to that thought and stayed the course.
    “We are going to the courtyard.”
    He didn’t put Jules down. The prince would probably curl back up in his nest, or possibly find a nook or cranny to hide in, and Lem was not having that. He was taking his prince into the sunlight, even if it meant he was disobeying his prince’s wishes. His job was to protect and defend.
    When Lem pushed through the door into the courtyard, he gasped as the sunshine touched his skin. It had been days. Days. He could feel it, energizing him, warming him. He had been so busy worrying about the prince, he’d forgotten his own need for the warm touch.
    He wanted to close his eyes and bask, but he didn’t. As private as this space was, that didn’t mean impenetrable. There was still the air, and he was no longer guarding the door from Jules’ quarters. So he kept his eyes open, stayed aware, and walked toward the lovely fountain that had pride of place in the center of the surprisingly roomy courtyard.
    “Can you feel the sunshine in your bones?” he asked even though he knew Jules could, the dull sheen on Jules’ skin already beginning to warm, to take on a hint of vitality.
    It was obvious to Lem that he had done the right thing. Master Anselle had always told him to follow his gut. Worried as it had made him, he had. He sent a silent prayer of thanks and love to his teacher. Every lesson, no matter how strange or hard or simple, was proving to be useful in the guardianship of his charge.
    Prince Jules lifted his face to the sun, the motion simple, instinctual. It gave Lem his first real look at the prince’s face.
    Unlike the thickset, heavy dragons that made up Lem’s caste, Jules had the delicate, gentle features of the ruling class. Perhaps the most beautiful features Lem had ever seen. The sadness in them did not dim Jules’ beauty in the least.
    Lem let himself memorize the fine cheekbones, the