Heirs of the Blade by Adrian Tchaikovsky Read Free Book Online Page A

began, but there were no more words.
    ‘I am a prince-major of the Commonweal, whose only master is the Monarch,’ Felipe Shah told her. ‘And I am in your debt, so you have but to ask.’ He stood up to go, and she tried to speak, tried to beg him for . . . but there was nothing, a void where the future had been.
    He bowed, and took his leave.
    That same evening found the seneschal, Lioste Coren, back at the embassy door, brushing aside Gramo Galltree and seeking out Tynisa.
    ‘The prince has spoken,’ he declared. ‘He advises you to leave.’
    Tynisa stared at him open-mouthed, even though she herself had decided she could not stay. ‘He said he owed a debt . . . He wants me to go?’
    A battle fought its way briefly across Lioste’s face. ‘Do not . . .’ he started, and then his dislike of her finally gave way before his duty to defend his prince. ‘He does not banish you. He does not cast you off. My prince has some small talent with the future, however. He sees only grief for you here. We are well aware that the Lowlander merchant is at Siriell’s Town. My prince advises you to leave his domain – to leave the Commonweal, to return home. He says you will be happier there. It is because he owes you a debt that he gives you this advice.’ The effort of being civil to her was plainly stretching him. ‘ Please .’
    ‘What shall you do?’ Galltree asked her later, after she had listlessly picked at the late supper he had prepared.
    ‘Would you let me stay here even if the prince wanted me gone?’
    Galltree twisted the silk of his robe wretchedly, and she held a hand up to forestall his crisis of conscience. ‘It doesn’t matter.’ She took a deep breath. ‘This Siriell’s Town, it’s a rough place?’
    ‘Lawless.’ Galltree nodded emphatically. ‘Rhael Province – the family that ruled there under Felipe’s, they’re all gone, long gone, I think. In such places, others creep in, fugitives from the order of the Commonweal. These days, there are many such provinces, especially since the war.’
    Her hand was on her sword hilt again, and she could sense the ghosts gathering close, waiting to hear her decision. ‘I’ll go,’ she said. Home or die, and how convenient that both are to be found in the same direction. I don’t even have to choose right now. She found that she had no intention of rejoining Allanbridge, if indeed he was not already on his way back to Collegium. Home held nothing but sharp edges for her now. She could not look Stenwold or Che in the face without seeing dead Achaeos reflected in their eyes – and how she felt him close and gloating with that admission – and she was being forced out of Suon Ren so very politely. How good of the world to provide a sink like Siriell’s Town to drown herself in.
    She took out Allanbridge’s rough map, and looked Galltree straight in the eye. ‘Anything to add to this?’ she asked.
    The road to Siriell’s Town was a matter of heading north-east as best she could: bridging the canals, and then heading over increasingly hilly country until she had made the subtle transition from land that still knew the hoe today all the way down through a gradient of neglect, to land that had not been sowed in a decade or more. She saw a few villages on the way, and avoided them by choice. There were no other travellers, no merchants or messengers, no flying machines overhead. The sense of the land was one of quiet desolation. She knew she would feel different if the Commonweal had accepted her in any way, but aside from Felipe Shah’s brief moment of openness, she felt more a stranger here than she had done when she arrived – and even the prince thought it would be best if she left.
    Each morning, and sporadically throughout the day, she checked her bearings as best she could by Allanbridge’s landmarks, thinking, So I can’t miss the place can I, Jons? As if I believe that.
    But when she came within sight of Siriell’s Town – having veered