The Poison Throne Read Online Free PDF Page A

anger hadn’t been directed at her, but at Rory Shearing and the thought that the spirit might have spoken to her.
    “What’s going on, Razi?”
    He lifted his eyes and scanned the kitchen again, not answering.
    “Razi?”
    He tilted his head, resting his cheek on his hand, and Wynter realised that he was shielding his mouth from the view of the rest of the room.
    “Wynter. There are no ghosts anymore.” He locked eyes with her, he was telling her something very, very important here. Life or death important. “Father has decreed it. And so it must be.”
    Wynter laughed in disbelief, glanced furtively around the room and leaned in closer, searching his face. “What…?”
    “Listen to me. Listen . There are no ghosts, Wyn. Understand? Anyone who says otherwise, anyone who communes…? They’re gibbeted , Wynter.”
    That made her sit back, with a snort of disgust. “Razi, that’s not funny, I can’t believe you’d think that was funny—”
    He grabbed her hand and pulled her in close. “I’m serious.”
    She snatched her hand away, rubbing the wrist. “It’s rumours. That’s all. Razi, have some sense! It’s your father’s enemies, spreading lies. The King would never —”
    “ What way did you come home? Over the mountains, yes? Through the forests? Nothing but hamlets and woodcutters and boar, am I right?”
    She nodded dubiously, still rubbing her burning wrist.
    “I came home via the port road, Wyn. I came up through all the main towns. There are gibbets at every crossroads. There are cages , Wynter. Father has re-introduced the cages, and people seem more than willing to use them.”
    Oh God. Gibbets? Gibbets and cages? Here, where they had been illegal since the very day Jonathon took the throne? No. No, no, no.
    Since her journey north Wynter had become accustomed to the sudden scent of rotting flesh on the air, to turning a corner and being confronted with a ragged corpse, caged in iron, swinging in the breeze. But she never thought to find them here, never here.
    Even at the beginning of the insurrections, when the Circle of Lords were pressuring the King into an inquisition, Jonathon had not succumbed to temptation.
    The easiest way to make a people hate is to torture them into submission , he had said, Happy people are stable people. One will win more hearts and minds with justice than one will ever do with the whip.
    “Oh Razi,” she whispered. “What has happened here?” Something else occurred to her and she looked up at him sharply. He flinched, as if anticipating what she was thinking. She swallowed against a suddenly dry throat and said, “Where are my cats, Razi? I met a stranger kitten on the moat bridge and it didn’t even reply to my greeting.” Her heart dropped to the soles of her feet at the look in his eyes. Then he couldn’t look at her anymore. He turned his head and gazed out into the kitchen for a moment as if trying to find a way to break terrible news.
    “No one speaks to cats anymore, sis. Please, please , don’t mention them to anyone.” He looked her in the eye again. “Please.”
    “Why?” she whispered, but then almost immediately held her hand up to stop his answer. She didn’t really want to know. Jonathon’s kingdom was the last in all of the Europes where cats still spoke to humans. Everywhere else, fear and superstition had driven a wedge between the species that had ended all but the most basic of communication. Wynter had missed many, many things up North, not least among them her cats and their strange, inhuman conversations. She looked down at the table, her lips compressed, and Razi waited patiently until she said, “What happened?”
    He took her hand, gently this time. “I don’t know the full story, Wyn. I don’t know much, if the truth be told. But Father got it into his head that the castle cats… well, that they knew secrets . That they knew something specific that he did not want known. I think he was afraid that they would talk,