Havemercy Read Online Free PDF Page B

a tutor, not quite a relation. He moved past me and crouched to examine the remains of my pocket watch.
    “That was very kind of you,” he said, carefully sweeping the pieces of the watch into a neat little pile on the path. “Not to be cross with William.”
    I eyed him. “You have servants for that, do you not?”
    “Oh,” he shrugged, as though it weren’t important. “That’s all right, I’ve almost finished. William makes so much mess throughout the day, I hate to burden them with extra work if I don’t have to.”
    I nodded after a moment, as though this made sense, which it didn’t. “Would you like your book back?”
    “Please,” he said, looking up in surprise as if the idea hadn’t occurred to him.
    “I suppose the country can’t be so very terrible,” I said insolently. “Is there at least a library in the house?”
    “Oh,” said Hal. “No.” He must have been frightened by what my face did then—quite of its own accord—for he added quickly, “But your brother, the chatelain, has bought a good many books for my education, and for Alexander’s.”
    I shielded my eyes against the glare of sunlight, looking out into the trees. There was a dreadfully large number of them, and like the sheep they were everywhere.
    Our esteemed Esar had phrased my exile thus: that it would be relaxing, that it would be a quiet place to consider my actions, and that—were I lucky enough to be called back one day—I would return from it as I would from a jaunt to the islands, refreshed and with a revised perspective on my country and my duties as a citizen. The particular tone of his voice implied that I would not be so lucky as to be called back anytime soon, if at all. Thus, here I was, trapped as if I were jailed, my only recourse children and children’s books, a woman I hated, and a brother I barely knew. The truth was evident. I’d never felt so indulgently sorry for myself, not even when I was much younger.
    At least, in those days, I hadn’t known what it was like not to feel helpless.
    ROOK
    “So he says, ‘I wouldn’t touch that with a ten-foot pole,’ and the whore says, ‘Which one, my lord?’” The usual chorus of halfhearted laughter greeted Magoughin’s conclusion—the sound of Compagnon’s just shy of a giggle, I always thought, and rising above the rest because as soon as you said the word “whore” he was off, no matter whether the joke was funny or not, and Luvander slapping his leg like he hadn’t heard that one three times already. I didn’t care a minute for any of it, because Ace and I were playing darts, and you can’t let Magoughin’s whore jokes or nothing distract you when you’re playing darts with Ace, seeing as how distraction leads to almost taking one of Ivory’s eyes out with a throw gone sour.
    The truth was, nobody wanted to do any thinking about what was in store for us, and nobody wanted to do any thinking about how we hadn’t been up in the air since the cold front hit. Or, to be more precise, since we wiped out the Blue Horde just outside of Lapis and left the whole Ke-Han licking their wounds like the dirty bitches they were. They’d taken back the Kiril Islands after that, and it’d set th’Esar roaring mad, but there wasn’t a thing we could do since the Islands were so far out seaward that there was hardly any chance of getting out there, let alone there and back all in one flight. Anyway, the Kiril Islands had changed hands more times than good coin in a whorehouse, so it wasn’t like we wouldn’t be getting them back one of these days. The Dragon Corps couldn’t fight all of Volstov’s battles for her, but if we could’ve, there wouldn’t have been a dispute over the Kirils in the first place. Leastways, not any kind of dispute that could be backed up with solid firepower. Simple truth was, the Ke-Han didn’t have an air force at all, much less one as fucking precise as ours, as fucking deadly. And so th’Esar and all of Volstov