The Shattered Goddess Read Online Free PDF

me with some insight, some comfort, some secret gained through your magical nature. Something. Have you ever had visions?”
    Ginna spoke slowly, very carefully. “I have had dreams. You are usually in them. You are very wise and you lead me. Sometimes we walk in the dead city among the flickering towers, and I can see the faint outlines of the buildings asthey looked when they were new. There are people hurrying back and forth. We try to talk to them, but they don’t stop. To them we’re invisible.”
    “Then whatever secret is in you has not yet come out. Perhaps it shall when I am gone. That is why I fear for you.”
    “For me?”
    “Yes. If I could have things as I want them, you would be my heir and rule all of Randelcain6 after me. ButI have made it clear from the start that you are not. I said so in front of witnesses when you were found, and for a very good reason. After I am dead, you must keep that quality which had endeared you to me. Stay out of politics. Don’t seek position or fame. Don’t get to know the right people. If you are part of even a little intrigue, a tiny stratagem, you are changed forever. Do you understandwhy I was so careful to disinherit you? If you had any claim to the throne, how long do you think you would be allowed to live? Kaemen has his followers already.”
    “What shall I do, after—?”
    “Just live. I hope you can do that. Then, if there is a destiny hovering about you, it will be fulfilled. If not, you’ll still be happier.” He took a ring from one of his fingers and gave it toGinna. “Wear this always. It will tell people that anyone who harms you will face the curse of my ghost. It is my last command to you that you survive. See that it is carried out.”
    “I love you,” the boy wept. He leaned over and put his head on the old man’s chest. He sobbed without restraint.
    “I love you too.” Thin, pale fingers with skin dry as parchment stroked his hair. “I don’tbelieve guardians are supposed to love anyone. We’re supposed to be beyond all that”
    Someone knocked on the door to the chamber.
    “Holy Lord,” came a voice. “Are you awake?”
    Ginna sat upright, stiff with terror.
    “Go quickly,” whispered the old man. “It’s one of my accursed doctors. Very skilled, utterly useless now. A bore. You wouldn’t want to meet him.”
    The boy leftthe bedside without another word. He drew aside a tapestry, pressed on a stone, and left the way he always did.
    * * * *
    Shortly before dawn, Ginna lay awake atop a heap of straw in his room in one of the short, squat towers overlooking the kata stables. The quiet of the night was broken only by the occasional snorts and whines of the beasts and the far off cries of the watch.
    He chose to be alone then, but it occurred to him that most of the time he was alone anyway without any choice. Courtiers and soldiers ignored him as just another urchin. The stable folk, the trainers of the katas , the smiths, and the serving women were always polite. They tried to act naturally around him, as if he were no one special, but he knew, he could secretly sense that they were a littlein awe of him and a little afraid. He sometimes overheard snatches of whispered conversations. He was, after all, so often led away by men of purpose and bearing. Someone was showing him more attention than he would normally merit, and trying to hide the fact He was, rumor had it, part of some intrigue, perhaps a child of high rank being hidden until some danger was past. But the gossipers couldnever possibly imagine the truth, that he was being summoned by The Guardian himself, that he was Tharanodeth’s friend.
    His friend . It occurred to him that he had only two friends in the world. He knew so few people. He had been educated only by Tharanodeth, and spottily, learning whatever it had moved the old man’s fancy to teach him.
    Tharanodeth and the girl Amaedig, whose name meantCast Aside. And now Tharanodeth was dying. But he could weep no