The Golden Key by Kate Elliott, Melanie Rawn, Jennifer Roberson Read Free Book Online Page A

of the water. Spray like a cataract from the finial of the fountain—the Matra Herself with arms outstretched—set a net of mist in the coiled strands of black hair.
    Something pinched inside of Sario. They were so alike, yet so unalike. Tza’ab blood ran in both of them. Her skin was not so dusky as his, but her eyes were a clear, unsullied Tza’ab gray, cleanas fountain water. He was dark as a desert bandit, though of a different hue than the olive-skinned Tira Virteians.
    He saw the rigidity of her shoulders, the pallor of knuckles locked over the lip of the ledge, clinging as if she dared not let go for fear of drowning, or falling.
    “Matra ei Filho,” she murmured, “In Their Blessed Names, grant him release from his torment—”
    “’Vedra—”
    “—let him not suffer what they have done to him—”
    “’Vedra—”
    “—Blessed Mother, Holy Son, let him know peace and no pain—”
    “Oh, ‘Vedra stop it! You sound like a sancta, speaking no word but that it has to do with the Matra ei Filho!”
    She unclamped one hand, lifted trembling fingertips to lips, to heart. “—grant him release—”
    “I’m going to leave you here!”
    Saavedra looked at him. He had never seen such an expression in her eyes: she was sickened, frightened, confused, but also angry. “Go, then,” she said thickly. “Go, Neosso Irrado, and look again inside your head to see what they did to Tomaz. Is it so easy a thing to wipe out of your mind?”
    It was not. But he did not have her softness, her weakness; he was male. He could bear it. He had seen what any male would see, were he Gifted; when the time came—
if
the time came—for another Chieva do’Sangua, he well could be one of the Viehos Fratos in the Crechetta instead of an outsider hiding in a closet.
    I don’t want to wipe it out of my mind. I want to see it again.
It was, after all, the only way he could understand it, could study what was done, so he would know how. It was a hunger, knowing how. “Magic,” Sario murmured. “That was
magic
, ‘Vedra!”
    With a muffled sound of disgust, Saavedra turned away. She tossed wet hair back from her face, tugged her tunic back into some semblance of proper shape, and looked around the zocalo. “Bells,” she murmured, brightening. “Birthing bells … the Duchess has had her baby!”
    It mattered not at all to Sario, who cared little about such things as ducal babies. Except— “
Merditto!
The Duke will have that filho do’canna Zaragosa Serrano paint the
Birth
… Matra Dolcha, but that graffiti-crafter will inflict yet
another
mediocre painting upon the Galerria, and Grijalvas far more gifted than he will have to paint all the copies!”
    Color flared in her cheeks. “Well, when
you
are Lord Limner, you can make certain the Galerria boasts only your masterworks, eh?”
    She meant it as derision, as repayment for his impatience; he had annoyed her yet again. But he did not take it as such. “I
will
be Lord Limner. And I
will
paint masterworks. And the Serranos will be reduced to copying
my
work.”
    “Oh, Sario—”
    “I will.” The bells, pealing again, nearly drowned out his words. “Zaragosa Serrano had best count his days, Saavedra. They will be mine soon enough.”

    Alejandro Baltran Edoard Alessio do’Verrada, in the transitory and negligent space of time between the dawn and noon, was transmogrified from only child to older brother. This time he was old enough to comprehend the change and what it wrought; before, twice before, he had been too young to know anything but that his mother shut herself away and cried, and his father, who ordinarily spent much time with his son, went away from both son and wife, away from the city entirely, to Caza Varra, a private ducal retreat.
    It could yet happen again, of course; no newborn was assured of life except he or she be properly blessed by the Matra ei Filho. If found lacking in grace, the blessing was denied and the child died. It was after all