Inheritance Read Online Free PDF Page B

last night from Kumul, and I don’t need any more from you.”
    Pirem could take no more. His voice broke as he cried out: “God’s sake, lad, you almost got yourself killed straight dead!”
    Lynan’s anger melted away. Pirem was almost in tears. “Really, I was in no danger. Kumul was there—”
    “Kumul? Kumul’s lucky to be alive, too. He should’ve taken me. Someone’s gotta watch his back. It’s too damned big for hisself to watch it. You’re both careless, you both think blades will turn on your hide, and you’re both as ox-headed as the general…”
    Pirem stopped suddenly and turned away, but not before Lynan saw the tears start to flow. Lynan felt ashamed. There were few certainties in his life, but one of them was the love he knew Pirem held for him, and the love Pirem had held for his father, General Chisal. Pirem had never recovered from failing to stop the assassin’s knife that struck down Elynd Chisal. The fact that he was able to slay the assassin before he could get away had never been any comfort for him.
    Lynan reached out to put his hands on his servant’s shin shoulders, but pulled back. “I am sorry,” he said quietly. “I promise to be more careful.”
    Pirem, his face still averted, nodded. “Being careful may not be enough anymore.”
    Lynan sighed. “I will not leave the palace again. At least, not by myself.”
    Pirem looked at Lynan over his shoulders. “You’ll take Kumul with you?”
    “I’ll even take you along, as well.”
    Pirem sniffed and straightened. “Well, good enough is good enough,” he said, his voice still subdued, and carefully examined his charge. “Pretty enough to frighten the queen’s horse. Get on, then. You’re expected in court this morning.”
    “Me?”
    “Your brother’s back from Hume. The queen wants the rest of the family to welcome him.”
    Lynan groaned. “I hate these sorts of things.”
    “Berayma’s your brother, like it or not. You’ve got to stick with him. He’ll be king one day. One day soon, maybe.”
    “Not much difference to me. Though at least Berayma will be no worse than my own mother.”
    Pirem glared at him. “You’ve got no sense, sometimes. You don’t know when people are doin‘ you good or evil. Her Majesty may have her faults, but not as many as you. Keep that in mind. An’ keep in mind your father loved her above all else, and he was no fool. An‘ keep in mind that you are her son, an’ that she’s never forgotten it, even if you have.”
    Lynan was taken aback by Pirem’s fierceness. “When has she ever shown me a kindness?”
    Pirem shook his head. “It would take all day and the next night to tell you, and you’re in no mood to listen right now. So go or you’ll be late, an‘ there’s no point in makin’ her even more angry with you than she already is.”
    Usharna gripped the armrests of her chair as exhaustion overcame her. She tried to force away the nausea by concentrating on the words being spoken by Orkid Gravespear, chancellor of the realm of Grenda Lear, as he strode about the queen’s study like a tamed bear. One of her ladies-in-waiting approached, but she waved her away.
    She had known last night when she had used the Keys of Power to save the life of that poor cripple how exhausted it would make her. The Keys held great magic but the cost of using them was also great. She was barely sixty years of age, yet she felt as if she inhabited the body of someone twenty years older again, thanks to the number of times she’d used the Keys during the Slaver War. Until last night she had not used them since the end of that terrible conflict, but she could not let the man die after he had so valiantly saved the life of her son.
    Oh, Lynan
, she thought,
despite everything I have done to protect you, my enemies still get through
.
    Or maybe, she conceded, not her enemies but those of her last husband, Lynan’s father. Elynd Chisal had been a great man and a great soldier, but common born.