Lord of Snow and Shadows by Sarah Ash Read Free Book Online Page A

unassuageable hate. Someone who was waiting for him.

CHAPTER 4

    The youngest and most insignificant housemaid of Kastel Drakhaon came hurtling along the painted corridor, not looking where she was going. Coming toward her was Sosia the housekeeper, weighed down by a pile of clean linen. Kiukiu skidded to a halt—but too late to avoid a collision. Sheets, pillowcases, and towels cascaded to the floor.
    “Clumsy child!”
    A sharp slap to the face; Kiukiu ducked—but not quite fast enough. Her cheek stung.
    “Sorry, Auntie Sosia.” Kiukiu dropped to her knees, trying to help Sosia pick up the spilled sheets.
    “You’ll have to mind your manners, my girl, when our new master arrives. Best stay in the kitchen, out of the way. He won’t want—”
    A bell began to tinkle. Sosia looked up.
    “What does
she
want now?”
    The bell went on tinkling, a high, insistent, irritating sound. Lilias’ bell; Kiukiu pulled a face. Beautiful Lilias, indolent and heavy with child. Refusing to leave her rooms. Demanding attention at all hours of the day and night. Sosia’s slaps might sting, but her anger was soon forgotten. Lilias never forgot a transgression, no matter how small.
    Sosia shoved the sheets into Kiukiu’s arms.
    “Well, I can’t send you to see to
her
wants, can I, not after last time? Where’s that good-for-nothing maid of hers?”
    The bell continued its insistent, petulant tinkle.
    “You’ll have to make up the bed for Lord Gavril.” Sosia pushed herself up again, shaking the creases from her gray skirts. “I’ll go see to my lady Lilias. Oh—and don’t you dare touch anything. Just make the bed. And go.”
    Since the time she was old enough to take up service, Kiukiu had been sent to clean the grates and lay the fires in the kastel bedchambers. She had lugged the heavy buckets of sea-coal and logs up from the outhouses; she had swept and scraped the ashes from the grate, rubbing the iron firedogs clean, day after day. But it was an honor to be allowed into the Drakhaon’s chamber, to perform even the most menial task—a fact that Sosia never let her forget, reinforced with many cuffs, slaps, and beatings. But Kiukiu never minded being accorded this particular honor, because it meant she could sneak a look at the portrait.
    She wandered around, drifting a duster over the dark, carved wood of the brocade-curtained bed, the tall chest of ivory-inlaid ebony, the lower chest encrusted with carved dragons, all sharp spines and curved wings until . . .
    Until she reached the portrait. It was set in a simple frame, so unostentatious that you could have passed it by were it not for the vivid quality of the painting. Whomever the artist was, they had captured a moment in time so intensely that whenever Kiukiu looked at it, she felt as if she were gazing through a window into another world.
    The portrait showed a boy of nine or ten years, head slightly turned as if someone had just called his name. His wind-ruffled hair was dark brown, lit with little tips of golden bronze. Behind him, Kiukiu could see a white balcony—and beyond that the blue of the sea. The boy’s sunburned features were regular, strong-boned. His expression was serious—though there was something in the way the artist had painted his eyes, and the little quirk at the corner of his mouth, that suggested the seriousness was assumed for the solemn occasion of the portrait and that an infectious grin was about to break through. And those eyes—they seemed to follow her when she moved away. Blue as the misty sea behind him, shaded by curling dark lashes and strong, dark brows, there was a luminous gleam to those blue eyes that was so lifelike it made her catch her breath.
    When no one was around, she used to speak to the boy. Who else was there to confide in? Sosia was too busy with the affairs of the household to trouble herself with the feelings of the youngest, lowliest servant girl. Lilias had taken an instant dislike to her. Lilias’