Dust and Light Read Online Free PDF

never again to stray, he had spent one dreadful day laying enchantment on me to ensure it. It had felt as if he had removed a limb and seared its stump with a cautery iron. It had been clear to all that our Head of Family expended his honor and his considerable influence to save me from additional punishment. He had resigned his royal post within the month, and he—mybeloved grandsire, the man I honored above every other on this earth—had never spoken to me again.
    The charcoal night beyond our glass window had shifted to winter gray. Incipient dawn brought the noise of boots and voices in the outer courtyard.
    Giaco, my manservant, arranged the folds of my cloak, fastened the clasp, and passed me my mask. I slipped the bit of maroon silk over the left side of my face, nudging its spelled edges to settle and cling about eye, nose, and ear, until it felt no different from my skin.
    The half mask required of every pureblood when going out among ordinaries signaled the magic that lay hidden within us. In company with the wine-red cloak, it ensured no ordinary could ever mistake us—a certain kindness, as the penalties for interfering with a pureblood were quite severe. The mask served warning to us, as well, reminding us of our need to maintain detachment from the ordinary world and focus on our masters’ tasks.
    My tasks . . . I’d not even had a chance to read the new contract. A Head of Family usually informed his kinsman of the contract terms before delivering him to a new master. Evidently a Registry negotiator felt no such need. Certainly, Bastien de Caton, Coroner, must have prospered mightily from the war to afford me.
    Giaco knelt to dust off my boots, as if that might prevent them from being sullied in the streets . . . or my master’s charnel house. Rumor had it that during last spring’s famine riots and the summer’s sickness, corpses had piled up so high they rotted in the lower streets or were thrown into open pits outside the walls. What would I do in such a place?
Deunor’s fire . . .
    “Gods’ mercy, Luka. What’s wrong?” Juli’s rosy skin had drained of color.
    I swallowed my gorge. “Nothing. All’s well.”
    Soflet, both steward and porter, glided across the atrium to admit my escort party. I inhaled and composed the half of my features yet exposed.
    But Juli, swift as a hummingbird, slipped in between me and the door. “You’re not going into battle, are you, serving one of these cursed princes in their war? They’re not going to lock you away? You’re coming back?”
    For that one moment, the brambles fell away and the steel dissolved to very young flesh.
    I clasped her quivering shoulders. “No battles, no princes, no traveling,no war,” I said softly. “Old
Pew-Pons
assured me I’ll be allowed to live here with you. As the city settles under Prince Perryn, we’ll dredge up your tutors and all will be as before. Speak with Maia and prepare the sealing feast for tonight when I get home. Have Soflet bring up our best vintage, and send Filip to find us meat, no matter the cost. I’ll be bringing home the fee to replenish the Remeni-Masson treasury. Today we begin our family anew.”
    Her face froze. She whipped her hands apart, breaking my grip. “Maybe I will; maybe I won’t.”
    “
Domé
Remeni-Masson . . .”
    The soft-spoken newcomer and his three men, outfitted in black and scarlet and framed by the gilded entry, could not have noted Juli’s sneer or heard her insolence. Indeed, as they introduced themselves and motioned me toward the outer courtyard, my sister composed herself, standing haughty and expressionless as was proper for a pureblood woman. The initiation of a pureblood contract was a most solemn occasion.
    *   *   *
    B y the Mother, it was cold! Bitter wind howled through the streets, disguising splintered shutters, scattered refuse, overturned wagons, and charred stalls with dusty snow.
    None could recall such winters as had plagued Navronne