The Grace of Kings Read Online Free PDF

himself.
    Over the years, Phin’s naturally kind heart became so wrapped and concealed in the roles he assigned himself that he could no longer tell where family legend ended and his own life began.
    But once, when five-year-old Mata was gripped by an illness that threatened to take away his life, the boy saw through a crack in his uncle’s hard shell.
    Mata had awoken from a feverish slumber and saw his uncle crying. The boy had never seen such a sight and thought he was still dreaming. Phin hugged Mata tightly—another gesture foreign to the child—and muttered many thanks to Kana and Rapa. “You’re a Zyndu,” he said, as he did so often. “You’re stronger than anyone.” But then he added in a voice that was gentle and strange, “You are all that I have.”
    Mata had no memory of his real father, and Phin was his father, his hero. From Phin, he learned that the Zyndu name was sacred. Theirs was a family born of noble blood rich with glory, blood blessed by the gods, blood spilled by the emperor, blood that had to be avenged.
    Phin and Mata sold their produce and pelts from hunted animals in town. Phin sought out surviving scholars, family friends, and acquaintances. A few of them surreptitiously kept a cache of ancient books, written in the old logograms unique to Cocru and forbidden by the emperor, and Phin borrowed or traded for them and taught Mata to read and write.
    From these books and from his memory, Phin told Mata stories and legends of Cocru’s martial past and of the Zyndu Clan’s glorious history. Mata dreamed of emulating his grandfather, to carry on the legacy of his prowess. He ate only meat and bathed only in cold water. Having no living calf to carry, he volunteered to help the fishermen at the wharf unload their catch each day (and earned a few coppers doing so). He filled small sacks with rocks and tied them around his wrists and ankles so that each step required more strength. If there were two paths to a destination, he picked the longer and more arduous one. If there were two ways to do something, he chose the harder and more strenuous method. By the time he was twelve, he could lift the giant cauldron in front of the temple in Farun over his head.
    Mata did not have much time for play, and so he made no meaning­ful friendships. He treasured the privilege of noble and ancient learning, won with so much hard work by his uncle. But Mata had little use for poetry. Instead, he loved books of history and military strategy. Through them, he learned about the golden past that was no more and came to realize that Xana’s sins were not limited to what had happened to his family. “Mapidéré’s conquest had degraded the very foundations of the world,” as Phin told him time and again.
    The origin of the old Tiro system was lost in the mists of time. Legend had it that the Islands of Dara were settled long ago by a people who called themselves the Ano, refugees of a sunken continent far over the seas to the west. Once they had defeated the barbarians who were the original inhabitants of the Islands, some of whom intermarried and became Ano, they promptly fell to fighting among themselves. Their descendants, over many generations and many wars, separated into various states.
    Some scholars claimed the great ancient Ano lawgiver Aruano created the Tiro system in response to the chaotic wars among the states. The Classical Ano word tiro literally meant “fellow,” and the most important principle of the system was that each Tiro state was an equal of every other Tiro state; no state had any authority over another. Only when one state committed a sin that offended the gods could the other states band together against it, and the leader of such a temporary alliance was given the title princeps , first tiro among equals.
    The Seven States had coexisted for more than a thousand years, and but for that tyrant from Xana they would have