Warin glanced away uncomfortably, tightening his sweaty grip on the dagger’s hilt. “I shall not wound you beyond my own power to heal.”

Nodding his acceptance, Duncan pulled his shirt off over his head and handed it to Morgan, who draped it over the back of the chair Kelson had vacated. The priest was pale but unafraid as he turned to face Warin.

Warin was trembling as he brought the dagger to waist level and approached—cautious, reluctant, yet drawn in horrified fascination that this enemy would permit what he was about to do. The thought crossed his mind that he could, if he chose, kill at least this one Deryni, but another part of him strangely shrank from that thought, as though already entertaining the possibility that these particular Deryni were telling the truth, terrifying though that was to contemplate.

When he had come within an arm’s length of Duncan, he stopped and forced himself to meet the calm blue eyes that gazed back at him, then shifted his focus downward. The priest’s torso, rarely exposed to the sun, was a pale ivory, almost like a woman’s, though there the similarity ended. The shoulders were broad and powerful, sleek with well-tempered muscles, with little body hair. A faint scar crossed the ribs below the left breast, another on the right bicep—training scars, probably.

Slowly Warin lifted the dagger point to eye level and brought it lightly to rest against Duncan’s left shoulder. The priest did not flinch as the steel touched his skin, but Warin could no longer meet the eyes.

“Do what you must do,” Duncan whispered, bracing himself for the thrust.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

“You have probed me, and you know me.”

PSALMS 139:1

SUDDEN pain lanced deep into Duncan’s left shoulder, and his body recoiled in a vast shudder. In that first instant of shocked agony, he was aware of Warin’s eyes blazing insanely, of Kelson’s gasp of alarm, Alaric’s arm under his good shoulder as his knees gave way and he began to sag, borne down by the pain.

Then he was collapsing to the floor, and Alaric was snapping at Warin, the gray eyes ablaze with anger, sanity returning to Warin’s face as he recoiled in horror from what he had done.

Through the haze of his own disbelief and shock, Duncan felt Alaric’s fingers probing at the blade that still pierced into his shoulder, the reassuring strength of his cousin’s strong arm supporting his head.

Then Cardiel was moving all the others back—all except Alaric. Besides them, Warin was the closest other one in the room. Alaric bent closer, his eyes like pools of storm, lips moving in words Duncan could not quite understand.

“Duncan? Duncan, focus! Can you hear me? Damn you, Warin! This is more than we agreed! Duncan, listen to me! It’s Alaric.”

Duncan found that, by concentrating, he could make the lips’ movement match the words that sounded muffled to his ears. He blinked and stared up at his cousin dazedly for what seemed like an eternity, then managed a weak nod. Extending out of range beyond his chin, he could just see the hilt of Warin’s little ivory-fitted dagger, the ivory darkly stained with his blood.