Read Online The Healing Wars: Book III: Darkfall by Janice Hardy - Free Book Online

or not to use it rather than go back upstairs. It was either full or he wasn’t allowed, because he sighed and headed for the stairs. “I’ll be right back.”
    Soek nodded, then turned back to me, dragging one hand through his red hair. “Saints, Nya, you gotta get me out of here,” he whispered.
    “We will. What’s going on?”
    He took a deep breath. “I was over here on a farm run when the fighting started. The soldiers wanted to go back, but Keeper Betaal wouldn’t let us. She’s selling heals at twice the cost and pocketing the money. She’s paying off the soldiers, so I don’t think she plans on going back.” He swallowed. “Or letting me go.”
    “Who’s Keeper Betaal?”
    “One of the Luminary’s new ‘administrators.’ Glorified thug is more like it.”
    “Is anyone else with you?”
    “No. Just soldiers and Betaal. When I questioned her, she said she had an Undying and wondered if she really needed two Healers.” He gulped. “I stopped asking questions.”
    Thumps sounded on the stairs. “He’s coming back,” Danello said. The Undying appeared. A woman followed him, also in Healer’s green, but not a uniform I’d seen before. Two additional soldiers walked behind her.
    Soek’s expression changed to grave concern like any good Healer’s. He took the battlefield brick of pynvium and placed his hands back on my head. No tingle this time with nothing to heal, but he made a show of it anyway. He pretended to push the pain into the pynvium and handed the brick back to the Undying.
    I fluttered open my eyes and sat up, swaying a bit.
    “There you go—all better now.” Soek stood and stepped away from me.
    “Wait,” the woman in green said. I held my breath. “She didn’t pay.”
    I looked at Danello. I didn’t know how much he had, but if heals were double now, it couldn’t possibly be enough to cover what Soek had pretended to heal. It probably wouldn’t even have covered healing the actual cut.
    “It was an emergency,” Soek said. “She would have died otherwise.”
    “Then you should have let her die.”
    “Keeper Betaal—”
    “You know the law, Soek, and I’m tired of you bending it. This stops right now.” She folded her arms and scowled at me. “Taking a heal you can’t pay for is stealing—and punishable same as any other theft.”

SIX
    D anello fumbled through his pockets. “I have some money, not a lot, but you can have it all.” The gratitude in his voice was utterly faked.
    Keeper Betaal glared at him. “A pittance won’t buy your way out of this. Arrest them,” she told the two soldiers.
    The Undying was still holding the battlefield brick, and odds were it held lots of pain. Could I reach it before the Undying stopped me?
    Flashing that pynvium would alert the Duke I was here. So would shifting. He was on his way anyway, so it might not matter, but if more assassins were looking for me, they’d find out exactly where I was. I had no idea if Quenji had a boat yet, so we might not be able to escape even if I did flash it.
    “Keeper Betaal, please,” Soek said. “She was dying.”
    “So? She would have died if we weren’t here. And now you’ve wasted pynvium on a freeloader, so someone who could afford it won’t be able to get the help they deserve.” She sneered. “You probably just cost someone else their life.”
    The soldiers grabbed Danello and me. They checked us both for weapons, took our knives, then hauled us out of the traveler’s house and toward a small brick building sitting by itself not far from the docks. Bars lined the windows. It was probably the only jail in the marsh farms. The farmers tended to take care of criminals in their own way.
    Lanelle was sitting outside the coffeehouse. She rose when we approached, but I shook my head. She stopped, watching us with worried eyes.
    The soldiers took us into the guardhouse. One guard sat at a worn table, eating lunch. Shaggy hair a bit too long, worn uniform. Perhaps a local, one of