The Eunuch's Heir Read Online Free PDF Page A

ear. Wolfram looked away from her incredulous gaze. He shrugged again.
    She stood over him a moment longer. “Move over.”
    He obliged, and she hopped up on the altar beside him, her split working skirt falling away to reveal her powerful legs clad in dark hose. Lyssa gathered a lock of the fallen hair, puzzling over it, waiting.
    Breathing carefully, Wolfram felt the heat of her beside him, the brush of her bare arm against his as she reached up to pat his shorn head.
    She let out a chuckle, tossing her head as if to cast back her own long-vanished hair. “Well?”
    He glanced at her sidelong, eyeing the tight leather bodice she worked in, slowly raising his eyes to her face. “What color is my hair, Mistress?”
    The tattooed vine at her brow curled downward as she frowned. “Blond.” She flicked the clump of it between her fingers.
    Wolfram shook his head, feeling an unaccustomed breeze along his scalp. “No, it’s bleached. Every bath with that special soap. I’ve been using it since I started bathing myself.” He uncrossed his arms and let his legs dangle, revealing a pale patch on his tunic. He rubbed his fingers across it as he spoke. “I washed this, just to see.”
    The last traces of mirth drained away from her face. “So, you tell me.”
    “That’s just it, I don’t know. I cut it all off, to see, when it grows back. In a few months, I’ll know something I should have known years ago.”
    Lyssa nodded, less a confirmation than an encouragement to go on. When he didn’t, but just kept staring down at the dagger among the blond hairs, she prompted. “Tell me everything.”
    At last, he did, the words tumbling out for her as they always had since he’d first hidden out in her temple years before. She listened gravely, not judging, not shaking her head at him, but with the sort of concentration she always gave to her work—as if he were blunt stone, and she could tease out the beauty within. As if he contained any beauty. With Lyssa paying such close attention, he wanted to be the hero of his own story, wanted to put himself in the right, but, even as he heard his own words, he saw the ruin he’d made of his mother’s special possessions, and the expression on her face when she called him her only son. The hollow place within him returned. “I came in here,” he finished, “so that I couldn’t ruin anything else.” He flicked a patch of his hair off the altar and watched it fall.
    When he finished, they sat still for a long time.
    “You know she loves you,” Lyssa said at last.
    He let out a half laugh. “Why else would she put up with me for so long?” This question trailed into a sigh. “Except I am the son of the blessed Rhys,” he said bitterly.
    Lyssa didn’t answer, absently stroking her thigh with a clump of his hair.
    Watching the gesture, he shivered. He dragged his eyes away, forced himself to look at her strong profile, the sleek line of her skull, bald as any priestess’s. His gaze slid back toward the curtain she had emerged from.
    Lyssa tilted her head in that direction. “Want to see?”
    He nodded quickly.
    She sprang down lithely from the altar, and he followed her across to the concealed alcove. Lyssa brought up the flames on the lanterns set about inside, lighting the little chapel. Given free rein for the project, she had imported lapis lazuli and malachite for slender columns and tiles inlaid with gold. The chapel was nearly done, but her workbench still dominated, holding a few chunks of pale pink marble and her well-kept tools. She turned one of the stones up to face them, her muscles flexing easily beneath the weight. A face emerged from the surface, a face that would one day support the entry arch to this family chapel.
    Lyssa stroked her fingers along the nose and cheeks she had so carefully revealed, letting them linger at the turn of an ear where unruly tendrils of hair crept onto the face. Though not yet polished, the lips appeared ready to speak, the eyes