TheDutyofPain Read Free

up. “Fine. Tell the truth. Why should I care?”
    Quuro cleared his throat. “Be calm, Terlio. If she is to join us, she needs the truth, don’t you think?”
    The duke wavered, and Alda held him up. “He should not be standing this long. To the table please, gentlemen.”
    She helped the duke to his seat and took the position on his left. The other four took seats close to them as the duke rang for service.
    Servants entered, filled goblets, laid platters of food on the table and left them.
    “The duke is never attended at meals unless he requests it.” She took the duke’s plate and put his favourites on in small measures.
    “Thank you, Alda.”
    “You are welcome, your Grace.” She served herself and gestured for the men to begin their own meal. “The duke prefers family style. Eat all you like, and if you need more, it will be brought to you.”
    She ate a few bites, but when she noted the stares at her wrists, she pulled her hands into her lap. Alda had grown so used to her chains that she hadn’t realised that it would cause a ripple of attention to someone who had not seen them before.
    Duke Ralen-Croth noticed her tension. “Don’t worry about it, child. They will stop staring soon enough.”
    She nodded and brought her hand up to grip the eating prong.
    Bukel grumbled, “We apologize. You do not seem to be a slave, but you are not free, and we don’t know what to do with that.”
    The duke sighed and sipped at his water before speaking. “When my illness struck, my high chancellor offered a reward to anyone who could extend my life. Through local officials in her hometown, Alda-Xeri was offered up as a Pain Taker. She did not come willingly. When she arrived here, the high chancellor put her in the chains to stop her from running on the off chance she could do some good, and now, it has been five months for her.”
    “Can’t any healer help you?” Quuro’s voice was simply curious.
    “No. Salugh syndrome takes the body and makes one part of it eat another. The healers who have tried to treat it cure one area and it attacks another. It is rare, but when it does strike, it is incurable.” The duke shrugged.
    Alda used the distraction of the conversation to finish her meal. She fidgeted with the chains in her lap.
    Terlio looked at her, his dark eyes concerned. “How are your wrists?”
    She blushed, but they couldn’t see it under the heavy makeup. “I will be scarred, but it isn’t too bad. My ankles are worse.”
    The duke sat upright and grabbed her arm. “Show me.”
    Sighing, she tugged the cuff away from her skin and showed him the discoloured and abraded skin.
    The duke asked the men around the table, “Can one of you take them off?”
    Terlio nodded and came around to kneel in front of her. She held out her wrists, and he took the left cuff between his hands. He concentrated and the cuff opened like a flower. The same treatment on the right cuff, and her arms were lighter than they had been in five months.
    The skin was scarred, as she had stated, but she was so busy staring at her wrists that she didn’t notice him flipping up her skirt. When his hands cupped her ankle, she gasped and stared into those dark eyes while he melted the metal away from her skin. Her right leg was released in seconds, and as his hands caressed her skin, she winced at the extreme sensitivity she was experiencing.
    He kept his gaze on hers, and his fingers continued to stroke the flesh of her calf. “Better?”
    She bit her lip and held her breath as she nodded. “Better. Thank you.”
    The duke touched her shoulder with a shaking hand. “I had no idea, Alda.”
    “I know, your Grace. I do not hold you responsible.”
    He took her right hand in his left and brought the scabbed and scarred skin to his lips. “I hold myself responsible. Now, gentlemen, how quickly can you get Alda off our world?”

Chapter Three
    Alda-Xeri walked proudly in the cloak borrowed from Quuro. The masks that they wore hid