Transformation Read Online Free PDF Page B

for the priceless Induit carpet was stained with wine and littered with fragments of glass, porcelain, feathers, clothing, and cushions. I worried that I might slice my forehead on the shards, and it was difficult to convince myself to rise up again after my obeisance. So I stayed down. I didn’t want his attention. And, in truth, he seemed to have forgotten me already.
    “Intolerable! I’ll see them all dead. Better, I’ll see them all in chains. I’ll send them to the Veshtari Overlord to spread dung in his fields. The Veshtar know how to use slaves.”
    “Aleksander, control yourself.” It was the Lord Dmitri, brother to the Emperor. “Your rash behavior has caused this mess.”
    “You blame me as Father does. It’s my fault that this city is filled with inbred imbeciles who can’t find their mouths with a spoon, but who dare spy on their Emperor’s son. And I am to accept it? You’re the one who keeps warning me of these Khelid, and now I’m taken to task for speaking my mind in private correspondence. By Druya’s horns, Dmitri, he’ll have me married to one of them, if this doesn’t stop.”
    My equanimity, already unsettled by Durgan’s warning, lay in ruins.
    “I’m as concerned about the Khelid as ever, Aleksander. But if you’re to be Emperor, you must think before you act. You mutilated the son of the oldest family in northern Azhakstan. You taunted and shamed him—and therefore his kin to the sixteenth degree—setting them at odds with your father and yourself. And to compound your stupidity, you make fatuous threats against your father’s new favorites and trust the letter to one of your attendants who happens to be Vanye’s brother-in-law! How can one intelligent man be so thickheaded?”
    “Get out, Dmitri. Until my father revokes my birth, I am your prince. You will watch your despicable tongue or I’ll have it out of your mouth.”
    “Zander—”
    “Out!”
    I glimpsed two well-worn boots, elegantly crafted of the finest leather, standing beside my head.
    “Here is your slave, Aleksander. Consider carefully what words you have him commit to paper. I love you well, but I will not stand between you and Ivan. Never think it.”
    An oil lamp crashed into the door as it closed behind Dmitri. I knew it was from the combination of shattered glass, rattling brass, and peach-scented oil that splattered over my back. It took all the control I could muster to stay still. It was daytime. The lamp was not lit.
    “Insolent, damnable wretch!” I hoped that was aimed at Dmitri. I kept my head to the carpet. I would have preferred to keep it there all day rather than allow the Prince to glimpse the barely healed mark on my face—the abstractions of a rampant lion that threatened to devour my left eye and the falcon that still throbbed on my cheekbone. From the conversation I had just heard, I was much too involved in this unpleasantness—exactly the last place a slave should ever be.
    Droplets of oil dribbled slowly down the backs of my legs. How could something so complexly wonderful and mysterious as the human intelligence devise a world so utterly, absolutely absurd?
    “Come, take up your pen, Ezzarian.” Anger transformed to cold bitterness. Very dangerous.
    “In the map room, Your Highness?” I asked, speaking clearly, not in some annoying craven whisper. I kept my face averted.
    “No. Right here.” He pointed to a small desk beside the window where he stood. It was a simple piece, made of dark cherry wood, planed and shaped into smooth, elegant lines, far less exotic and elaborate than the other tables and chests in his chambers. Out of place, yet far more pleasing to my eye. The drawer slid open quietly at my touch. Inside it a small, sharp knife lay beside the stack of creamy white paper. While I unstoppered the ink and used the little knife to sharpen the three pens that lay on the desktop, the Prince absentmindedly ran his hand over the satiny, tight-grained finish of the desk,