Arrows of the Sun Read Online Free PDF Page A

in. You saw how yonder
princeling was, once I made him see what else I am.”
    “What you would rather not be.” Iburan sounded tired. “He
saw that, too. Be sure of it.”
    “What if he did? They’re slaves born, all of them, even the
princes. Once he knew that I have blood-right to his homage, he gave it. He’d
have slit his own throat if I’d ordered him to.”
    “There,” said Iburan more wearily than ever. “There you have
it. Half of your empire is Asanian. Half of you is Asanian. And you know no
more of the truth of yourself or your empire than a blindfish knows of the
sun.”
    Estarion’s head throbbed. “It is not half of me! It’s a trickle in the tide that I am. No Asanian
has tainted my blood since Hirel himself.”
    “‘Tainted,’” said Merian. “Dear goddess help me. And you
believe it.”
    “Is it false?” Estarion asked her.
    She did not answer.
    He swept his hand down his body. “Look at me. What do you
see? Northerner, as pure as makes no matter. Except for this.” His fingers
clawed as if to rake his eyes; but he knotted them into fists. “If my father
erred, then so did Varuyan before him, and Ganiman before that. None after
Sarevadin endured an Asanian marriage. And she was married to Hirel Uverias,
who was like no Asanian who ever was, or ever would be.”
    “No,” said Iburan. “He was nothing remarkable, except that
he loved a foreigner. And that, he always said, was a doom of his line.”
    “So it is,” Estarion said slowly. He caught himself before
he said something he would regret. He would not bring Vanyi into this, or soil
her with its touch.
    “Estarion,” said Merian, “listen to me. The time is ill, but
it will never be better; and you must know, and accept. When your father wedded
me, he promised his council that his son would not repeat his error.”
    “It was an error to marry for love?”
    “For him,” said the empress mother, “and for his empire, it
was. It killed him. You must not err as he erred. You must do what he failed to
do. You must take a bride in the west.”
    “No,” said Estarion flatly.
    He could not say that he had not expected it. He had ears,
and wits. He knew that his council did not approve of Vanyi. She was a
commoner. Her father fished off the coast of Seiun isle. She brought him no
wealth or power, nor any dowry but herself.
    But an Asanian. A yellow woman. Serpent-breed, to breed
serpent-children.
    His gorge rose. He would not do it. He could not.
    “You will consider it,” his mother said. “That much at least
you will do.”
    “I have considered it,” he said. “I refuse it.”
    “Have you ever even seen an Asanian woman?”
    Estarion rounded on Iburan. “Why in nine hells—”
    “How can you judge anything unseen and untested? Before your
priestess came, you shuddered at Islanders and called them corpse-folk and
fish-people, and reckoned them less than human.”
    “Islanders never killed my father,” said Estarion.
    “That’s Asanian, you know. That obstinacy. That
unwillingness ever to forgive.”
    Estarion laughed. It hurt. “You can’t have both sides of it,
foster-father. Either Asanians are sorely misunderstood, or all my vices are
theirs, and none of my virtues.”
    “How can you know until you know them? You can’t avoid them
forever, no matter whom you choose for your empress. Asanion has had no emperor
in its palace since your father died there. Soon or late, you’ll have to face
it and them.”
    “Are you telling me that I should ride west in the morning?”
    “Hardly that,” said Iburan, impervious to the weight of
Estarion’s irony. “You’ll need a cycle or two at least to settle this half of
the empire. But then, yes, I think you should begin a progress into the west.
People are expecting it. They need to see you, to know what you are.”
    “As yonder princeling did?”
    “Even so,” said Iburan. “If you have nothing better to give
them.”
    “God,” said Estarion. “Goddess. That