Dragon Warrior Read Online Free Page B

merely an infirmary.”
    â€œIt is both. One cannot heal without magic.”
    â€œReally? Well, the humans seem to manage,” he said dryly.
    â€œThe humans don’t live when they’ve lost over eighty percent of their blood supply and one limb.”
    A surprised chuckle bubbled out of him. “Touché,” he said, quite liking the glimpse at her feisty side.
    â€œBesides,” she said, setting down one bloody tool and opting for another, “I’ve spent my whole life here.”
    The smile left Kestrel’s face. “You’ve never left the mountain?”
    â€œI’ve never had to.”
    â€œExcept to shift, of course,” he said matter-of-factly.
    Her slim fingers wobbled in their normally precise movements of tweaking and refining the mechanical leg.
    â€œYou have shifted,” he stated more than asked. “Haven’t you?”
    After a moment she shook her head. “No. Never.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œAgain. I never had to,” she replied, her tone abrupt.
    Her reply sounded believable enough, and yet Kestrel sensed she wasn’t telling him everything. “Do you not yearn for a life outside these walls?”
    â€œWhat for? So I can live the same life behind some other walls just a few hundred feet that way?” she said, pointing toward the inner city.
    Okay, now he found her feistiness annoying. “You know what I mean.”
    She shrugged. “I suppose. Yet, as you’ve no doubt noted, this is where the elderly females come for sanctuary. When they are no longer fertile and withdraw from the flock, they move here to practice magic and teach the regency virgins the way of the ancients.”
    Kestrel knew all this, of course. He’d heard the lore and stories. But he’d thought they were just that. Stories. “Wait, so if you’re down here that means you’re…”
    Her cheeks flushed the color of his bloodstained bandage, the answer to his question before he asked it.
    â€œOf course,” he said, reading the name on her badge.
    Sparrow Rose.
    â€œRose,” he repeated aloud. “You were the resident healer’s daughter.”
    â€œYup.” She bit out the word, tossing an implement onto the tray with a clang.
    â€œHe was a brave council man.”
    â€œHe was a mad scientist.” Her jaw muscle bunched. “A murderer.”
    Kestrel swallowed, unsure of what direction to take this conversation. “Not all accused him of such that day.”
    Her head snapped up, her eyes unwavering in their intensity as she stared him down. “They should have.” She snapped the latex gloves off her hands and straightened, the stool screeching against the linoleum floor as she stood. “We’re done here.”

Chapter Five
    Once Sparrow rounded the corner, her hands started to shake. The minute she stepped into her office, she shut the door, bracing her back upon it. Images, memories of her youth, flashed behind her closed eyes, leaving puncturing imprints on her soul with each one.
    Memories of helping her father during healings flooded her mind. How each and every time, the emotions of the wounded or dying warriors would slam into her, terrifying her, hurting her. Sometimes even render her unconscious. Yet he never cared. He always forced her to be in the room with him.
    Sparrow braced her hands on the door, groping for something solid to hold on to while she rode out the tide of the past swelling all around her.
    Memories of the day a group of anxious, violent dragon lords stormed into the magus dome for her father. She’d been but a child, yet she remembered as if it were yesterday. The legion claimed he’d failed to administer care, failed to heal her mother and a legionnaire rumored to be her lover, and they hanged him for it.
    She’d spent every day since swearing she would be everything he wasn’t. Had sworn she would heal anyone brought to her, no