The Summer Prince Read Online Free PDF

doesn’t know why I like them so much, and I say that I’m an artist, and an artist who neglects personal adornment is like a singer who can’t keep a tune.
    Anyway, Gil is full of shit, because when I take the time to make him beautiful, he’s happy as a cock. He’s just too lazy to think about it, and he knows he’d be gorgeous in sackcloth. I love Gil’s mother because she doesn’t care what we do. With so many orders for the celebration of a new summer king, she can hardly see past silk and sequins, so when we come racing into her studio practically screaming with joy, she tosses some fabric at us and mutters something about a new turban for one of the Aunties.
    “There’s tape in the basket,” she calls, “but stitch what you can — I still need some!”
    “No worries,” I say, sifting through the swatches of fabric with steady hands. “I know how to use a needle.”
    She grins at me. “Just ’cause I taught you, filha. Now go on, and take care of my boy.”
    This doesn’t even get a rise out of Gil. He just laughs and waves her on. “June’s Auntie Yaha got us tickets to the reception tonight. We’reabout to meet the summer king himself, Mamãe,” he says. “I’m burning so bright, you could as well take care of a meteor.”
    Gil’s mother laughs, but her eyes are frowning. “That Enki,” she says, “ he may be a meteor, but you’re just a boy, Gil. He’ll burn you up.”
    Gil puts a mocking hand on his heart, though he knows his mother is serious. “Oh, but to burn up in that comet’s tail,” he says, and then I’m laughing, I can’t help myself.
    “It’s all right,” I say before she can start again. “Enki won’t notice us anyway. He’ll have the Queen to worry about, remember?” The king isn’t the Queen’s consort in any technical sense, but he’ll be expected to stay close to her during his first public appearance after the election.
    She still seems hesitant, as though there’s something she’s forgotten to say and she can’t remember if it’s important. “Oh, Oreste. I thought she would eat him alive on that stage! I remember how it was with Fidel …” She would have been the same age as Fidel back then, I realize. Gil’s mamãe is so mature it’s easy to forget that she’s nearly as young as us. She laughs wistfully. “We were mad that year, I swear. I don’t know how any of us survived it.”
    I remember seeing Enki’s name flash across the holo; the screaming of the crowd as they showered him with feathers and flowers and love notes. I remember how happily he smiled and how carefully he walked in his bare feet to accept the circlet of cacao from the Queen.
    “We’ll survive it,” I say, while I remember that our kings never will.

    We walk into the ballroom at the top of Royal Tower precisely one hour late. Auntie Yaha is there with Mother. Auntie Yaha smiles when she sees the two of us and she waves, though she doesn’t break away from Mother and another man I eventually recognize as the ambassador Ueda-sama. The views from up here are majestic and nearly panoramic. A corner of the ballroom floor is a giant glass bubble that projects out into the city from a precise angle, such that you can see all the way down through the hollow body of Palmares Três and into thebright green-blue waters of the bay. Tonight, a web of lights glitters all the way down to the water. To mark Enki’s election, the legendary lights of our pyramid city have turned celebratory. They flash and sparkle like the implants in my skin, and I’m grateful that I took the time to place a few more before we arrived here. Now, if you squint, it looks like it might be a branch of a tree. At least that’s what Gil swore, and he knows I’d kill him if he lied. This party is more than exclusive; no more than five hundred people have been allowed into this special room. Five hundred well-connected, influential people, and even Auntie Yaha must have had to call in a favor to get Gil