Maledicte by Lane Robins Read Free Book Online

advances. Why shouldn’t I? He took me from a farm that couldn’t feed me, and gave me a library, good food, a room to myself, and free license when in the city.” By the end of his speech, Gilly had nearly convinced himself once more of the wisdom of his bargain. “He will grant you similar gifts.”
    “If I please him,” the boy muttered. “Make myself a toy for his whims and desires. Make myself a thing rather than a person. A possession easily replaced when he tires of it. How long have you been with him?” When Gilly choked on his answer, the boy smiled before staring out the window; his breath frosted on the cloudy glass.
    Quiet minutes passed with the only sound being that of the wet impact of snow spattering the carriage like sea spume.
    “How uncivil you are,” Gilly said. “Vornatti’s offered to aid you—”
    “Catch me believing anything that an aristocrat says,” the boy bit out. “They all cleave together.”
    “And you know so much of their ways,” Gilly said, gently mocking. “Do you think you’re the only one to hate Last? I promise you, Vornatti’s distaste for the man runs to the bone.”
    At the boy’s skeptical expression, Gilly said, “It’s true. They met more than thirty years ago in the Itarusine court. It’s a dangerous place, rife with assassin princes and poisonous noblewomen. A frozen land of coldhearted people who pride themselves on their courage, their aggression, and their willingness to do anything to see their desires met. It makes our court seem milkwater in comparison.
    “For Last, only a fourth son even if of royal blood, a season in the Itarusine court was his opportunity to marry well, to gain a fortune he would not inherit on his own, perhaps make an alliance between the two courts. But Last proved too stiff-necked, too conservative in his views to thrive there, and when he met Vornatti—well, I believe they arranged a duel before they finished making their first bows to each other.”
    The boy gazed out the clouded glass again, seemingly uninterested, but his fingers sketched brittle shapes in the fog his breath left. Tiny crosses that could be daggers, could be swords. Gilly said, “By the time the duel became fact, Last had absorbed enough of Itarusine ways that he paid Vornatti’s whore to render him insensible. When Vornatti missed the duel, Last declared him a craven. It wasn’t done out of fear; Last is an admirable swordsman. Rather, it was done out of spite. It ruined Vornatti, far more effectively than even a lost duel could. It took until Xipos for him to regain his reputation.”
    “One thwarted duel and you think Vornatti can hate Last as I do?”
    “There’s more, there’s always more. And far too much to explain now.” It wasn’t time so much that stilled Gilly’s tongue as consideration. Vornatti had few weaknesses, but the reminder of his sister was one of them. Aurora Vornatti had been the old bastard’s heart, the only person he loved purely. When Aris Ixion had chosen to wed her, Last had spread slander wide and far trying to dissuade him. Whispers of wantonness, of inbreeding, even of flesh turned poisonous. Aris had earned Vornatti’s friendship by denying the rumors. But when the long-awaited heir proved damaged, when Aurora died of his birth, the slander rose again and followed her to the grave.
    Sometimes, it seemed to Gilly that Antyre itself was trailing after her into the grave. Xipos the first blow, and Aurora a deadly second thrust. Aris seemed unable to recover from either.
    Gilly frowned. If the boy hadn’t known Aris, their king—“You understand about Xipos?”
    After a blank, black look, during which Gilly recalled the utter self-absorption of his audience and the lack of education, he explained the Xipos War. As much as that prolonged and bloody decade could be explained. The cause was simple enough: Itarus attempted to seize Xipos and its winter ports from Antyre’s grip. But the battling grew so protracted