Storm breaking Read Free

indeed.
    That's not very subtle, cat , Karal thought warningly, knowing Altra would hear him.
    :It wasn't meant to be subtle,: the Firecat replied in his mind only. :There was a time when he contemplated injuring you. If he ever strays in that direction again, I want him to have something to think about.:
    Karal kept his face straight as Altra imparted that choice bit of information, so he did not reveal a reaction. That was certainly news to him.
    And now everyone seems determined to protect me! But Firesong was waiting for him to say something, so before the mage could ask what it was that made him look so odd, he raised a shaking hand to rub his eyebrow. "Cats. You can't live with them, and the fur's too thin for a rug."
    Altra gave an exaggerated snort of disgust as Firesong laughed aloud. "You are feeling better," he said, this time without the mockery. "Good. Maybe tonight you'll be able to stomach something besides that tasteless slop the shaman has been feeding you. Just try not to get well so quickly that I'm forced to wash my own plates again any time soon."
    Before Karal could reply, Firesong rose to his feet to take away the dripping snow pack. He turned his head slowly to look in the direction of Florian and the others.
    Sure enough, a little way past the chamber's entrance, Florian stood with his head just above An'desha's shoulder, looking at something the shaman was drawing on the floor.
    He could, if he just relaxed a little, see everything from Florian's point of view. He didn't want to relax that much, honestly.
    I just want my headache to stop. I want to be able to get up and do things like the others. I truly do want to stop being a burden. It isn't the place of a priest of Vkandis Sunlord to be the one given comfort, it is the priest's place to give comfort...
    He closed his eyes, and tried to find some meditation technique that would at least enable him to sleep despite the pain. If he fell asleep, at least he wouldn't be quite so aware of what a nuisance he'd become.
    Without any warning footsteps, he felt a touch on his arm. His eyes popped open, all he could manage in the way of a startled reaction.
    He found himself looking up into a pair of extremely blue eyes, amused eyes, in a triangular face with golden skin. The eyes and the face topped a body wearing Shin'a'in garments of unornamented dark sable-brown; the color, he now recalled, that Swordsworn usually wore when they weren't engaged in one of their rare but vicious blood-feuds.
    The Swordsworn had another name. Kal'enedral . The ones Sworn to the service of Kal'enel, the Warrior . He knew more about them now than any Karsite alive. The person sitting lightly on "his" heels would be one of the Swordsworn who had guided them here and guarded them on the way; who had, with the aid of k'Leshya, excavated a way into the Tower. He couldn't tell if this person was male or female; with the Swordsworn, it hardly mattered, since they were not only vowed to chastity and celibacy, but were by their bond to their Goddess, rendered incapable of a sexual impulse. That was a state that had no parallel in the Sunlord's hierarchy; although Sun-priests were not encouraged to wed, they were not denied that state either.
    "Well, this was not what we intended when we opened our secret to you, young outClansman," the Shin'a'in said, in a clear, slightly roughened tenor voice that could have belonged to a man or a woman. The Sworn One spoke with very little accent in remarkably good Valdemaran. Karal was relieved; his Shin'a'in was rudimentary at best. "We thought you would be here and gone again—"
    The Shin'a'in paused then, as if suddenly aware that the "gone" very nearly had been "permanently gone."
    Karal shrugged. "This wasn't our plan either, Sworn One," he said politely.
    The Shin'a'in laughed. "True enough, and I think not even your God could have predicted this outcome. Certainly our Goddess did not! Or if She did, She saw fit not to grace us with the