Read The Sheening Of The Blades (Book 1) for Free Online

“I’ve never seen a Dra before,” she said stiffly, nose poking into the air with sudden lofty dignity.
    “ I’ve never seen a Dra either, but I don’t have to stare at him for hours on end to figure out what one looks like.”
    Her glance could have frozen legions of lesser adolescents.  “You’re one of those irritating little boys—”
    “ And you’re one of those stuck-up girls…”
    This was obviously beneath her standards of conversation ; she turned regally and abruptly away from him.  Unfortunately, by some appalling accident of equine ambulation, this put Ari right in her sights.  She seized on him.
    “ So.  Your name is R.E.?”
    “ Mm,” he said, fighting a sudden desire to put heels to the brown.  Close enough; he’d been called worse.  She frowned diplomatically, a practiced look.  “Hm.  And what kind of a name is that?”
    Ari was horrified.  Conversation with this haughty terror was the last thing he wanted.  On the other side of her, Rodge and Loren were hiding their delight behind balled hands.  “Uh, Cyrrhidean,” he said grudgingly.
    “ Oh.”  A pale brow launched over a pale eye.  “That would explain your lovely tan…” There was just the tiniest bit of deprecation in her tone—‘tanned’ peoples were invariably not from the North.  She faced forward again and he breathed a sigh of relief.
    They rode east until the setting sun began to turn the countryside into blushing gold and Ari ’s powerful head of hair looked like it was on fire on the strong, brown column of his neck.  He’d been eyeing the rising foothills and seductive woods to their north, hearing their whispering wildness, for quite some time and had just assumed they would camp there.  Melkin, unfortunately, seemed quite able to curb his own romantic longings for the wilds.  When they turned off the Way, it was towards the south, where the land stretched away uninterestingly into the numberless fields and farms of the Empire, consumed by reasonable and productive Northern agriculture.  And littered with identical hamlets so gripped by domesticity that it put Ari’s teeth on edge. 
    He looked dispiritedly around him as their horses clopped into one of these featureless villages, staring at the neat buildings, at the trade signs hanging outside each establishment in a long row of sameness down the street.  This…this smothering docility probably held his fate for the next sixty years or so.  Dread and distaste washed over him anew as his little problem came careening back full force.
    Melkin stopped them in front of an inn, and Ari, lo st in glum self-pity, had his attention abruptly diverted by Rodge’s startled and painful, “AH! Oh.  Oh, my.  Oooh…”  He and Loren exchanged interested and calculating looks over the head of their friend, whose face was frozen into the shocked grimace of the novice horseman.  Sometimes Rodge just made it so easy.
    The innkeeper came out, fussy and pinch-faced, honing in on Melkin with a businessman’s nose for the purse-keeper.
    “ It’ll be seven, full-board,” the Master said gruffly.  He was pulling out his purse when the man said icily, “Six.  We don’t take his type here.”  He was staring fastidiously at Kai.
    Cerise stepped forward instantly and imperiously, her long split skirts swirling dramatically to reveal (accidentally or otherwise) very expensive bootwear.  The whole street went quiet and turned to look at the sound of her voice.
    “ Dra Kai is on Queen’s business,” she snapped, with crushing authority. “Obviously, since he has her trust, any ignorant, misguided, mindless decisions on the part of a backcountry bigot are completely inconsequential.”  This unique barrage of insult, reason, and verbosity seemed to be just the thing.  One last nervous look at the Dra, some obsequious head bows, and the man collected his tirna and scuttled back inside.
               Kai, not the type to overwhelm a person with