The Boy with the Porcelain Blade Read Online Free PDF Page B

kill a man with my bare hands?’
    ‘If you think you can manage it,’ sneered the superiore . He knelt down and collected Lucien’s blade, drawing it slowly. ‘After all, there will be times when you don’t have a sword to rely upon.’ Lucien stared open-mouthed in horror. Giancarlo hefted the weapon above his head, then brought the bone-coloured blade crashing down onto the granite floor. The blade flew apart, shattered into uncountable pieces.
    Lucien felt the fury grow behind his eyes, at the back of his neck, coiling in the muscles of his torso like reptiles. His fingers curled into claws and then he was lunging forward.
    D’arzenta shouted something from the balcony, but the sound came from a great distance, drowned out by Lucien’s rage. The smirk on Giancarlo’s face gave way to uncertainty. Lucien grasped him by the jacket, mashing his forehead into the nose of the superiore . Giancarlo collapsed with a muffled thump, blood streaming down his chin.
    For a few seconds no one in the chamber moved. D’arzenta and Ruggeri stood leaning over the balcony, faces frozen with shock. The Allatamento boy cowered, keen to be away from the furious Orfano. Franco sidled to the wall, flattening himself against it, perhaps hoping he would be forgotten. Lucien stood at the edge of the dais, the remnants of his blade scattered all around like bone fragments. His hands were shaking but his anger had fled.
    Giancarlo dabbed at his face with blunt fingertips, regarding the blood on them. He looked at the bright fluid for a few seconds and laughed.
    ‘Striking the superiore . This is… unforeseen.’ He stood up and Lucien backed away from the dais, hand straying to his knife.
    ‘Not only am I failing you, but I’m petitioning Duke and Duchess Fontein to strip you of your colours.’ Giancarlo’s eyes glittered coldly. ‘You’ll be forced to change your house name.’
    Lucien tried to swallow, struggled to breathe. He’d delivered to Giancarlo everything the superiore could have hoped for short of dying. Everything Lucien had worked for, all he’d dare dream of, swept away in one moment’s insanity.
    ‘In fact, I’m taking this further,’ growled Giancarlo. ‘I’ll petition all of the houses for your immediate expulsion.’
    Lucien staggered back a step as if he’d been struck. He totalled up the votes. Against him, Duke and Duchess Fontein, Lady Prospero and the capo de custodia. Golia most certainly. In his favour, Lady Stephania, if she was allowed to vote. Dino perhaps. Unknown: Lord and Lady Contadino, the Majordomo, the directors of House Erudito. Would Anea stand by him or simply abstain? Worse still no student had ever struck a maestro in all of Demesne’s history, much less a superiore .
    ‘Why don’t I save you the bother and just leave,’ he whispered.
    ‘Oh no, I’m going to enjoy this.’ Giancarlo grinned through blood-rimmed teeth. ‘I’ll see to it your name goes down in Demesne’s history books as the most wretched Orfano that ever existed.’
    Lucien turned and walked out of the chamber, the sound of his boot heels too loud. He struggled with the door, pushed through into the antechamber, then away into the dank corridor beyond. All that followed him was silence.

4
    Festo’s Arrival
HOUSE CONTADINO KITCHENS
– Ottobre 307
    Lucien leaped out of bed, eager to spend a few hours practising before his testing with Superiore Giancarlo. His first test, the previous year, had been unremarkable. He’d passed largely at the charity of Ruggeri and D’arzenta, eliciting a sneer and nothing more from the belligerent superiore . Lucien had noticed that Giancarlo’s school were heavier in the shoulder than other students. They wore their hair cropped close, like the Maestri di Spada who trained them. Giancarlo’s school was a mix of students from the lower classes, or else the second or third sons of noble families. At best they could hope for commissions among the guards of House Fontein. They