The Bone Palace Read Online Free PDF

quickly enough.
    All the mages in the Arcanost couldn’t undo the damage,nor salvage the palace, though they held the city together through the terror. Demons prowled the streets even by daylight, and untrained mages and mediums went mad or catatonic. Magic fouled the air and water, and those too close to the epicenter contracted bizarre maladies. The once wealthy neighborhoods around the palace were deserted in weeks, never to regain their glory. House Korinthes never reclaimed the throne, and lost the rest of its power within a generation. Isola Alexios, a general at the time of the Hecatomb, had used the unrest to ease her way to power, and her family to the Octagon Court.
    The city was never the same, but at least it went on, and learned to thrive all over again.
    They turned off Desolation Circle, and Isyllt pulled the curtain shut. History was good for perspective—after a disaster like the Hecatomb, a dead prostitute and stolen ring and her own heartache hardly seemed so much.
    The new palace, called the Azure Palace for its blue domes, was everything the old palace was not—colorful, sprawling, lush with gardens and orchards. Removed from the decay at the city’s heart.
    The guards wasted no time when a disheveled sorcerer knocked at the door on the wrong side of morning, but escorted Isyllt inside. The prince’s page, a boy about Dahlia’s age who stared at her as if she might sprout wings and snatch him through the closest mirror, led her to a book-and map-lined study and ran to fetch his master.
    Isyllt draped her coat over a chair and sank onto the soft upholstery with a weary sigh. Her eyes and neck ached, and she felt the cold and damp more keenly in her left hand. Her hair slipped free of its pins, trailing darkstrands over her shoulders. She stared at the toes of her boots, wincing at the muddy prints she left on the expensive Iskari carpet. The air leaking through the shutters smelled of rain and roses and conjured the taste of blood into her mouth once more. She grimaced—death and decay might be her specialty, but she didn’t always like to be reminded.
    A few moments later she heard footsteps and the door opened. She caught a glimpse of the page’s wide dark eyes peering around the corner, and then the crown prince of Selafai entered the room, a tea tray balanced on one hand.
    Isyllt rose and bowed, the ring bouncing against her chest as she straightened; the spell was quiescent. Nikos Alexios came to her barefoot, wearing a hastily tied brocade robe over loose silk pajama trousers. Sleep still tousled his black curls and stubble darkened his jaw. He blinked at her, disconcertment comical on his handsome face—no one wanted to be awakened before dawn by a necromancer.
    He shoved papers across the polished mahogany desk and set down the tray. “Lady Iskaldur. To what do I owe this unexpected visit?” He sat, and she followed suit.
    She had known the prince for years, since she first became apprenticed to the king’s own sorcerer and spymaster; they were nearly of an age. Though never close, he greeted her at balls and social functions, and she and Kiril had dined with Nikos and his mistress—and later with his wife—from time to time. He looked so much like his dead mother, from his brown Archipelagan skin to his long-lashed golden brown eyes. Those eyes were wary as he regarded her now.
    She took the cup of tea he offered, letting it warm her hands. An unlooked-for honor, to be served by the prince, but she knew it was nothing but habit, his ongoing efforts to be nothing like his father. His pleasantness and approachability weren’t a lie, precisely, but he did nothing without reason.
    “I’m afraid I need to ask your whereabouts last night, and earlier this evening.”
    He paused in the midst of spooning honey into his tea, then relaxed a little when she smiled. “Last night I was at the Orpheum Tharymis with Thea Jsutien and her husband.
The Rain Queen
is worth seeing, by the way,