Scholar of Decay by Tanya Huff Read Free Book Online

setting the razor down with studied care lest he be tempted to use it, he found his voice and cried, “Why bother taunting me? My victory has never been anything but ash in my mouth!”
    To your victory!
jeered the apparition.
    Self-abuse or not, this was more than Aurek could bear. Shrieking in rage, he flung the mirror against the far wall, where it smashed into a hundred pieces.
    Edik, a carafe of coffee dwarfed by his huge hand, stood in the open door and shook his head at the broken glass. “Break a mirror, break your luck,” he intoned portentously, sucking air through his teeth.
    “Luck?” As his pride, wearing a dead man’s face, mocked him from every piece of silvered glass, Aurek laughed bitterly.

    Awakened by the sun shining through the tattered velvet curtains, Louise stretched, freed herself from a shredded tangle of bedclothes, and climbed out of bed. Although she hadn’t fallen asleep until nearly dawn, she wasn’t the least bit tired. Nearly a hundred carpets of every imaginable pattern and hue, scattered ankle-deep on the floor, provided her with a cushioned path from the enormous canopied bed to a tarnished, gilt-framed mirror that took up almost one entire wall.
    Pivoting naked in front of the glass, Louise smiled at her reflection, well satisfied with what she saw. The few scars left behind by family arguments she hadn’t won in the first few seconds were all positioned where fashionable clothing easily covered them. “Aurek Nuikin is a fool,” she murmured, her hands dancing lightly over alabaster skin. “Don’t you agree, Geraud?”
    The young man lying facedown on the bed made no reply.
    Her smile widened as she turned and patted him gently on one bare buttock. He was in no small way responsible for her mood this morning. When she’d brought him home from the party, still blindly furious at the scholar and her sister, he’d done everything he could to make her feel better. Pitifully grateful to be noticed after her earlier dismissal, he’d been attentive and adoring and … athletic. Unfortunately, he hadn’t survived the experience.
    “Geraud?” Louise reached over and drew a fingernail down the sole of his bare foot. The skin parted, but Geraud remained perfectly still. “No matter; just checking.”
    The servants would know what to do with the body when they found it. It wouldn’t be the first slipped into the dark depths of the river to add its soupçon of rot to the muck and decay. It wouldn’t be the last.
    “It probably won’t be the last today.” Sliding the crimson silk robe up over her shoulders, Louise exchanged a glance of malicious anticipation with her reflection. “If Aurek Nuikin intends to wander in deserted buildings, he’d best take care. After all, a great many unpleasant things could happen to a poor helpless scholar intent on research.” The tip of her tongue slid along the full curve of her lower lip. “A great many unpleasant things,” she repeated.

    Aurek stood silently in the doorway and watched with a worried frown as Dmitri, his body nearly doubled over in pain, vomited bile into a chipped porcelain bowl. When he finally fell back against the pillows, dripping sweat, hands feebly clutching at the tangled bedclothes, Aurek stepped into the room.
    “Are you all right?” he asked, crossing to the bed.
    Dmitri stared up at his brother in disbelief, bloodshot eyes squinted nearly closed in spite of the diffused light coming through the drawn curtains. “Oh, I’m just fine,” he mumbled. “Just fine.”
    Brow creased, Aurek laid an inquiring hand on Dmitri’s brow only to have it abruptly shaken off. He sighed and clasped his hands behind his back instead. “What do you remember about last night?”
    “I remember your being a patronizing …”
    “No. What do you remember about your … adventure?”
    “Adventure?” Dmitri laughed humorlessly. “I got drunk and fell in the river.”
    “That’s all you remember?”
    “Well, I think