Emperor's Edge Republic Read Online Free PDF Page B

the top angled toward him so she couldn’t see what he was working on. He was bent low over it, his handsome face utterly still with concentration, the tip of his tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth, one pencil in his hand and another perched above his ear. He wore simple trousers and a sweater that fitted his form nicely and made her think of the first time she had seen him, when he had been jogging bare-chested with her father and another man, plotting the retaking of the city. He had cut a fine, athletic figure, though even then, a gentleness about his face had said artist rather than soldier. Or maybe she had simply revised her initial impression of him after seeing his work and learning more about him. Learning more about him from a distance , admittedly. The classes she had enrolled in that winter had kept her busy, as well as countless silly dinners and formal events it was apparently imperative that a president’s daughter attend. More than once, she had wondered if she shouldn’t have returned home to stay with Grandmother and finish her studies on the islands, as her younger siblings had done.
    Except then she wouldn’t be here, gazing at a handsome man who... hadn’t noticed she was in the room.
    Mahliki knocked again, this time on the inside of the door. She didn’t mind having to try again. She was used to being ignored—or not noticed—by people absorbed in their work, as it ran in the family. At home, only Father always retained awareness of the outside world, usually knowing when someone had arrived at his study before they did.
    “Uhm, Sespian?” she asked. “Do you have a moment?”
    He lifted his head. “Oh, hullo, Mahliki.”
    She smiled, pleased at the personal greeting. They had spoken to each other so few times since they had met that she wouldn’t have been surprised if he didn’t know her name, thinking of her only as one of Starcrest’s children.
    “Hello.” She ought to get straight to her request—he was clearly busy—but curiosity, and the fact that she couldn’t see what he was working on, prompted her to step into the small office and ask, “Is that your entry for my father’s contest? Is it going well?”
    “It’s going...” Sespian pushed a waste bin full of crumpled papers under the desk with his foot. “I can honestly say this iteration is better than some of the others.”
    Mahliki grinned. She didn’t consider herself a perfectionist, but the family had many of those as well, and she understood the type. “You sound so enthusiastic.”
    Enough early spring sunlight made it through the window to highlight the pink that flushed his cheeks.
    “May I see it? I’m self-taught when it comes to art, and not very well at that, but I can appreciate good work.” Mahliki decided not to mention how much of his art she had sought out. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much, as most of his belongings had burned in the explosion that had destroyed the Imperial Barracks. “I’ve seen you in the courtyard between classes, sketching those caricatures for students.” More than once, she had been tempted to stroll up and have him do one of her, but she hadn’t been sure how he would react.
    His cheeks flushed to a darker shade of red. “You’ve, uh, seen that? With the tip jar? It’s not...” Sespian bent his head and rubbed the back of his neck, hair in need of a cutting falling into his eyes. “I guess a smarter former emperor would have put some money aside for himself before his career was demolished, but I was busy with... well, I never had to worry about money before, so it didn’t even occur to me. I was shocked to learn the price of a flat in the city. A very, very small flat with a window the size of an arrow slit—actually I think it was an arrow slit once. And Trog—that’s my cat, you know—he prefers fine food, not alley scraps. He’s very vocal if I give him substandard fare—to the neighbors’ chagrin.”
    Mahliki stared at him in chagrin of