Smith The Turncoat Prince

1. Auflage 2016
ISBN: 978-1-941334-17-1
Verlag: PublishDrive
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, Band 4, 294 Seiten

Reihe: Anamat

Darna is just a guildswoman, or so she'd like to think, but her alleged father was the prince of a backwater province. Now he's been assassinated, and her uncle has put a price on Darna's head to secure his claim on the throne.
Darna takes her lover's place in a job that will take her away from the city and, she hopes, away from assassins' daggers. Her new employer, the prince, is irate to find thatthe able-bodied man he hired has been replaced by a limping woman. According to the contract, they're stuck together for the year. The prince is arrogant, but also intelligent and well-read. As winter closes in, their late night conversations turn from sea walls to more intimate territory.
Meanwhile, the province's lost dragon reappears, and even the prince can see it.
This book is the second in the Dragonsfall trilogy. It is recommended that you read The Defenders' Apprentice first. The story also refers back to some events which took place in the two prequel novels, Scrapplings and Priestess.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Smith, Amelia

Leseproben

Chapter Two Garlands of flowers hung the length of Myril’s street, dangling from every window, bright against gray stone and whitewashed walls. Above, the sky was clear and calm, a perfect Midsummer Eve. Darna had been in Myril’s room for two full nights and a day, and its welcoming walls were beginning to close in, the drapes confining rather than comforting, the air stifling. She couldn’t stay there forever. At midday, Tevan would be coming to her room. If she weren’t there to meet him, he might sound some kind of alarm, which would not do at all. Besides, she did want to say goodbye, regardless of whether or not she could convince him to go along with her plans. No matter what he said about her brilliance, he didn’t like taking suggestions from her. She was waiting for Eppie to arrive – Thorat had said that he was going to send his apprentice to guard her when she went back to her own room, so that she wouldn’t be unguarded on the streets. “Don’t worry,” he’d said. “Eppie’s quick. She can skewer almost any guardsman in Theranis before he can draw a dagger. Besides, your friend won’t mind her. No one ever seems to think she’s much more than a scrappling. I could tell that he didn’t like me coming there. He seemed to think I might be some sort of rival for your affections.” Darna blushed. She thought that Thorat hadn’t noticed, but he was right, Tevan certainly wouldn’t see Eppie as her potential rival. Then again, he might take an interest in Eppie. He sometimes said that he liked boyish women, and she was never sure whether he meant that as a compliment or not. Eppie arrived a little before gate closing, with her knives at the ready and a sword on her back. She looked different somehow, taller, older by more than a year, and less like a scrappling in every way. She drank Myril’s tea until the bells sounded, then she and Darna set out, sticking to the back ways and alleys. For Midsummer Vigil, everyone past infancy was expected to stay awake through the night, so the midday rest would last longer than usual, almost until sundown. Darna would have enough time to convince Tevan – if he could be convinced at all. They stopped at the mouth of an alley not far from Darna’s place. “Any guardsmen?” Darna asked. “Tiadun’s livery is orange and blue – any of those?” “Wait here,” Eppie said. She slipped onto the street, as shadowy as the scrappling who begged beside the corner shrine. She returned within moments. “It’s just the usual Midsummer crowds,” she reported. “Not a sword in sight, except mine.” She peeked out of the alley one more time. “Not much for pickpocketing, either. Used to be better.” “You’re not going back to that today, are you?” Darna worried. “Of course not,” Eppie said. “I have other things to do now.” She looked away as she spoke, discouraging further questions. Darna handed her a short string of beads. “Buy yourself something to eat across the way, and watch for anyone coming to my door.” “I’ll follow when your man comes, and wait on the stair. He won’t know I’m there.” Darna handed her a few more beads. “How about you bring us a midday dinner?” Eppie nodded. “I’d better go before they sell out of stew.” Darna used to hide all the time when she was living under the bridge and scavenging for scraps. Hiding in the alley felt like slipping back into old, well-worn clothes, but now she wished she could walk freely on the ordinary streets. She’d gotten accustomed to that freedom. At least here in Anamat, she knew the hidden ways. The provinces would give her no such cover. Darna strode quickly across the street and up to her empty room. Everything was just as she’d left it – the disheveled bed, the empty cups on the table, the scrolls in disarray – but the place already felt abandoned. She shook out the blankets and lit a bit of incense in a brazier, washed the cups in the bucket, and ran a damp cloth over the table. She hoped that Tevan wouldn’t notice the air of loss and decay, the sense that what had lived there was gone already. Darna looked out. Eppie sat at a table in the makeshift café across the street, head resting on her arms as if she were napping, but she wouldn’t be asleep. She would be noticing everything, listening if not looking. Darna lay down on her bed beneath the window and closed her eyes. The knock on the door startled her awake. She jumped to her feet and stumbled across, remembering just in time to be careful. A look through a hidden crack beside the door revealed that it was only Tevan, as expected. He was wearing a garland of small white roses around his neck. “I came earlier,” he said. He paused to kiss her. “You didn’t have your garlands up, so I went back to the market to buy one for you.” He took the garland of roses off his neck and looped it around hers. Darna thanked him with a quick kiss. “I don’t know how I forgot. We’d better hang them out.” She took the garland to the window and Tevan helped her hang it. “Shall we speed the ambassadress on her way?” he said, pulling Darna close. It wasn’t the rite, what they did together. It was only common sex. She’d told him before that it didn’t make much difference, but even common sex fed the life of the land a little bit. It pleased the dragons, too. She’d never been able to make Tevan understand the difference between the rite and common sex, even though he was a native of Anamat. It was no wonder the foreigners couldn’t grasp the difference between a temple and a brothel – they didn’t know how to approach the temple; they only knew the customs of the brothel. Tevan’s lack of understanding still annoyed her, but this wasn’t the day to explain the difference. It was all in the attitude of the petitioners and whether or not the priestess could turn the men’s lust to awe. Most couldn’t. She certainly couldn’t, not with Tevan. He hiked up her tunic and stroked her thigh. “Actually,” Darna said, “I thought you might be hungry. I’m having a youngster bring up stew from the place across the street.” Tevan pouted, but before he could say anything, Eppie knocked at the door. Darna let her in and Eppie handed over the crock of stew. She raised her eyebrows as if to ask if everything was going all right. Darna nodded and glanced toward the stair. Eppie nodded too. “I’ll be back for the crock in a bit,” Eppie said. “There’s no hurry,” Tevan said, smiling at her speculatively. Darna frowned. “No, there’s no hurry,” she said, “but do come back before the gates open again.” “Sure thing, ma’am,” Eppie said, and made a sloppy, mocking bow, silly enough to make Darna chuckle, but too subtle in its mockery for Tevan to see it as anything other than clumsy. Darna thanked her and let her out. § Tevan was hungrier for sex than he was for stew, so Darna took the last of her scant pleasure with him before turning to the main reason she’d come back to meet him, not that he knew that she’d been away. He was well enough satisfied before they talked of the future. “I’ll miss you when I’m away in Slaradun,” he said as he rolled off her. “My own personal priestess.” He reached over to caress her hair, which, while still red, was less unruly than usual, thanks to Myril’s attentions. “You smell nice. Is that a new hair oil?” “It is.” Darna reached for her lightest tunic, then remembered that she’d left it at Myril’s place. She got up, put on the tunic she’d worn earlier, and checked the crock of stew. It was still warm, though no longer hot. She ladled it into the clean bowls Eppie had brought and poured a little ale for each of them. “I could just stay in bed all day,” Tevan said, lying down again. Darna decided to eat anyway. She was hungry, whether or not Tevan was. “How are things going with your prince?” she asked. That got him up. “The man is a pompous know-it-all,” Tevan said, as if he weren’t one himself. “He thinks that just because he’s seen a few cities, he knows how to build a harbor, build a whole new city.” “A city? In Slaradun?” “It’s all very hush-hush,” Tevan said. “I probably shouldn’t be telling you, but who else can I tell? It’s not as if there will be anyone worth talking to – or bedding – out in the province of the runt dragon.” Even if Salara was a runt, Tevan had no business insulting any dragon. “But there can’t be enough people in Slaradun to make a city,” Darna said. “I don’t think there are now, but this prince has plans, and I’d say he was dragon-touched, but he’s too quick-witted for that. He did a preliminary drawing himself. He can write and read.” “A prince who can write and read, and admits it?” That was unusual. Writing was the domain of scribes and priestesses. Most princes preferred to concentrate on manly pursuits like hunting, foreign alliances, and having their rivals killed off. If they did read, they kept it to themselves and left official correspondence to their secretaries. “He’s arrogant, and he has a scrawny boy to do his bookkeeping who I don’t like at all. There’ll be precious little company out there, and I won’t see you, or Anamat, until next Midsummer.” “If then,” Darna said. “What do you mean?” “If he really wants to build a city, it’s going to take a lot longer than a year.” “I’m only contracted for a year,” Tevan said. “I can’t go longer than that. My father’s...