The Boy with the Porcelain Blade by Den Patrick Read Free Book Online Page A

the breast. They avoided him, not wanting to speak with a strega , the bastards of Landfall. He heard their whispering as he walked on. Speculation had been rampant in the run-up to the testing, but they could not have dared imagine Lucien’s expulsion. Word of his failing would find its way into every corner of every keep by nightfall. The women of House Prospero would chatter breathlessly from behind fans in well-appointed salons, while the professori of House Erudito would shrug and grumble in lecture halls laden with dust and age. Even now, the many novices and adepts of House Fontein’s three schools would be delirious with the telling and retelling of such disobedience. The least of the novices would be bullied into running to other houses, spreading the word and bringing back new details, fabricated or exaggerated. Few would care. Only the members of House Contadino might spare him sympathy. They knew him best, for better or worse.
    Onwards he walked, into the chiaroscuro lamplight of King’s Keep, gliding dreamlike through the circuitous corridor linking the four houses. The wide passage was windowless, supported by thick columns, making it a claustrophobic nether world. Artisans from House Prospero hurried past, clogs sounding on the flagstones toc toc toc , aprons flapping at their knees, calloused fingers thrust into deep pockets. Scholars from House Erudito ambled toward private lessons for Demesne’s privileged few. The professori looked indistinct in their black gowns, pale faces standing out in the gloom. Some small few regarded Lucien with barely concealed distaste. Nothing new. Messengers bore scraps of parchment and lofty expressions, each trying to outdo the others with self-importance and pomposity. They stared each other down through white-powdered faces, pouting past beauty spots. They rushed as if the very stones of Demesne depended on their messages being delivered. Lucien was too stunned to give them one of his customary glares. The guards on the gateways mumbled to each other, shooting wary glances as Lucien approached. He barely noticed. His expulsion would mean an end to the indignities of Demesne.
    Thirteen years of schooling. Almost daily education in blade and biology, classics and chemistry, philosophy and physics, art and, very rarely, assassination. He had been given the best of everything in Demesne as set down by the king’s edict, even when he’d not wanted it, which had been often. Now he would be bereft of everything, all thanks to Giancarlo. Worse still, Franco would be consigned back to the oubliette. The whole affair had been as pointless as it was futile. Lucien groped at the hilt of his bone-coloured blade and found the scabbard empty. He remembered the ceramic weapon shattering, shards exploding across the floor of the practice chamber, just as his life was now sundered into parts across Demesne. Lucien chewed his lip and fixed his eyes on the flagstones in front of his feet, walking mechanically. The candles guttered and flickered around him, making the way ahead unclear, threatening to drown him in Demesne’s deep darkness.
    Finally he returned to House Contadino, his feet leading him back of their own accord. He tried to swallow and found his throat thick and uncomfortable. He was being thrown out. Exiled. He, an Orfano; the very idea of it.
    ‘Lucien? What’s happened? You’re as pale as a ghost.’ Camelia stood before him. He was standing in the kitchen. Several other cooks, maids and porters looked up from their labours, nudging each other and speaking in low voices. The news had not raced ahead of him, it seemed.
    ‘Are you hurt? Your jacket…’
    ‘I’m fine,’ he said, his own voice sounding distant. ‘Small cut on the shoulder,’ he added. It occurred to him he was still bleeding, but it was something unremarkable, as if it were happening to someone else.
    The staff continued their work without a word, weaving between one another, vying for space on the