The Prince of Shadow Read Online Free PDF

miss me, and the gladiators will have some fun breaking me into pieces.”
    â€œThat they will, boy, and feed you to the house dogs when they are done.” Shen-shu, who almost never displayed any sign of good humor, slapped his knee and laughed in agreement with Llesho’s assessment of his chances.
    â€œForget about the old witch and her threats and warnings,” he chided with more of that good humor so alien to his nature. “Your shift-mates miss you, and it makes them inefficient.”
    â€œThey must learn to do without me,” Llesho countered, “because I am determined to be a gladiator.”
    â€œYou are a fool, do you know that, boy?” Shen-shu was no longer laughing.
    Although at a disadvantage, being still on his knees, Llesho looked up at the foreman and held his gaze steadily. A good strategist knew when to hold his ground. “Then I am a fool,” he accepted. “But I am a fool who will die as a gladiator, not as a pearl fisher. Nor as food for the pigs.”
    â€œWe’ll see.” Foreman Shen-shu would say no more. With his authority over the pearl divers came the responsibility to mediate their rare petitions. Those he could not negotiate to a standstill must be referred to the Lord Chin-shi. And the boy Llesho was clearly not going to negotiate.
    â€œYour humble slave gives thanks for your beneficence, in taking this petition to your master,” Llesho answered, completing the formal petition ceremony.
    His shift-mates, who listened silently while he argued his case with the foreman, stood apart from him with confusion and even fear on their faces. Llesho looked from one to the other, but found no understanding or support, not even from Lling, who turned away from him when he tried to catch her gaze. For the first time in his life as a slave, Llesho found himself embarrassed to see his Thebin shift-mates naked.
    I am your prince, he thought, you owe me more than this. But they didn’t know, and he couldn’t tell them, nor did he expect that they would thank him if he did. He turned his eyes to the ground and walked away, ignoring the wagon that silently filled with the divers going home.

Chapter Three
    WEEKS passed for Llesho in an agony of suspense. Kwan-ti did not approve of his decision, but she could not declare him fit to work in the pearl beds either. They both knew that left little but the pig troughs for a growing boy with no useful skills. Kwan-ti said nothing, but went about her work with her lips pressed together and her eyebrows drawn down in a frown.
    Llesho’s strength returned quickly, and with it the need for movement. He missed work, realized that the danger of the pearl beds had kept his mind sharp and his attention focused. And he discovered, to his surprise, that he missed his shift-mates. He had never thought of them as friends when they spent each quarter-shift together in the bay. In the days since he had seen the spirit of Lleck and nearly drowned, however, the pearl divers had begun to distance themselves from Llesho. The experience had set him apart as his secretive reserve had not. The usual quarter-rest banter that bound the group with petty griefs and shared workaday mishaps could not absorb so great a challenge, could not take in this new shape of him and make it ordinary. Llesho recognized the sudden emptiness where Lling’s smile used to be, and the absence at his back that Hmishi used to fill. It seemed that he had been wrong on all counts. Not friendless and, according to Lleck’s spirit, not without a family either. And not aware of any of it until he found himself well and truly alone. Well, damn.
    To fill the hours, he ran. Not fast at first, but as he recovered, his runs grew longer: around the island once, twice, before he stopped, gasping. Even Thebins needed to catch their breath eventually. Some days he had heard the measured tramp of feet falling in unison to a deep voice rumbling out the