Last First Snow by Max Gladstone Read Free Book Online Page A

follow their hearts. They wanted more. Their eyes accused me of cowardice. I went to the Square to serve, and as I served my congregation grew. The gods are closer than ever before to accepting our new, bloodless path.”
    â€œAnd the cult of Temoc grows with your church.”
    â€œDo you want me to desert them? I trained to serve and fight.” He tightened his fists until his knuckles cracked. “It took me years to learn peace, to learn to spare the fat small imitations of men who spit at my feet but cannot meet my eyes. What would be left if I turned my back on service?”
    â€œA man,” she said.
    â€œThis is a problem of mine with the Kathic tongue,” he replied. “In High Quechal, man is an honor to be earned. It is not a state that remains when all else is ripped away.”
    â€œFine.” Even from this distance she could feel the heat off his skin. “So help them deal with us. That’s why we made the Craft—to resolve problems without bloodshed.”
    â€œThe Craft was made for the same end as any other tool: to bring power to those who wield it.”
    â€œCraftwork is more than a big stick to use on people we don’t like. We fought to build a better world than that.”
    â€œI have no power in the camp.”
    â€œThose people look at you like a saint.”
    â€œAnd what will happen when I try to lead them? I am the last Eagle Knight. Priest of the Old Gods. The King in Red has waited decades for an excuse to kill me, and you ask me to offer him one as a solstice present.”
    â€œHe’ll deal with you in good faith, if I have to break his neck to make it happen.”
    Temoc’s default mode was statue, idol, edifice. He did not show weakness or confusion. The old priests had gouged all those from their recruits. But there were cracks in him, and desperation seeped through.
    One of Temoc’s house windows closed.
    â€œYou know I’m right. If you don’t pull these people together, they’ll listen to someone else. Someone angrier. If that happens, I can’t guarantee their safety.”
    She waited for him to talk. She waited a long time.
    â€œI will do it,” he said.
    â€œThank you.” She kept tight rein on her satisfaction. “Send me word when you’re ready. Now, if you’ll excuse me. Where’s the restroom?”
    â€œInside,” he said. “First door on the left.”
    The screen door opened into a dim tiled dining room. Mina sat at the table in front of a fanned-out horseshoe of yellowed papers. Books gaped at her, propped against stacks of other books. Her pen drifted down the margin of her notepad, and she squinted through reading glasses at a tomb rubbing. She didn’t look up as Elayne passed into the deeper dimness of the house. Oil shone from the bellies of glass lamps perched on shelves. Ghostlights were set into the ceiling, unlit. Through the door at the hall’s end Elayne saw Caleb pondering cards spread on his bedroom floor for solitaire or prophecy.
    She stared at her reflection in the darkened bathroom’s mirror for a count of twenty, flushed the toilet, washed her hands, dried them on the towel. Mina didn’t seem to notice when she returned, though she did look up when Elayne set a business card on her notepad.
    Mina’s eyes were large and soft over the rims of her glasses.
    â€œIn case you need anything,” Elayne said. “In case there’s any way I can help.”
    Mina did not quite smile. “I guess we’re not very subtle in this family.”
    Elayne did not smile, either. Somewhere in the last few years she’d lost the knack of doing so in a reassuring manner. Her teeth seemed to multiply, her grin too broad, as if her bones strained against her flesh: the skeleton in waiting. “I do not need to catch you eavesdropping to see that you’re nervous. I would be too, if I was in your position.”
    â€œThis will