Chapter 4: Set Straight

The wall on the training course was twelve feet of wet stone with a rope on top.

Teague had bet two recruits a week of dishes that I wouldn't clear it on my first try.

I cleared it.

Then I let go of the rope one second too early, and I landed on my left shoulder.

Something popped, and the whole arm went hot and useless.

"Don't move," Teague said, sliding down the wall to me. "Don't. Oh, that's a bad angle."

"It's out," I said through my teeth. "I've seen it on a hydraulic jack."

"I'll get a medic."

"The medic's off at the capital until tonight," a recruit called.

Boots came across the yard at a run.

Hollis Garrow dropped to a knee in the mud beside me and said nothing for a moment.

He looked at the shoulder, and then at Teague.

"Go."

Teague went.

"Your rule," I said, and had to stop to breathe. "No touching."

"This is a reduction, not a touch."

"That's a very fine line."

"Hold still, Brask."

He pushed my sleeve back and set one hand on top of my shoulder and the other under my elbow.

His palms were warm, and larger than I'd guessed.

My whole body noticed.

It was a ridiculous thing to notice with my arm hanging out of its socket.

"Look at the sky," he said.

I looked at the sky.

He turned my arm out, and then up, in one slow motion, and the joint slid home with a clunk I felt in my teeth.

Keep reading free with an account. Start My Alpha Parents Gave My Tuition Away, So the Royal Command Took Me from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.