Read This Woven Kingdom for Free Online

Kamran could not countenance sycophants.
    â€œYou are worse than an idiot, did you know?” Hazan said with great serenity. “You should be nailed to the oldest Benzess tree. I should let the scarabs strip the flesh from your bones.”
    Kamran said nothing.
    â€œIt could take weeks.” Hazan had caught up, and now he kept pace easily. “I would watch, happily, as they devoured your eyes.”
    â€œSurely, you exaggerate.”
    â€œI assure you, I do not.”
    Without warning, Kamran stopped walking; Hazan, to his credit, did not falter. The two young men turned sharply to face each other. Hazan had once been the kind of boy whose knees resembled arthritic knuckles; as a child, he could hardly stand up straight to save his life. Kamran could not help but marvel at the difference in him now, at the boy who’d grown into the kind of man who felt comfortable threatening to murder the crown prince with a smile.
    It was with a begrudging respect that Kamran met his minister’s eyes. They were nearly the same height, he and Hazan. Similar builds.
    Wildly different features.
    â€œNo,” Kamran said, sounding tired even to himself. The sharp edge of his anger had begun to fade. “As to your enthusiasm for my brutal death, I have no doubt. I refer only to your assessment of the damage you claim I’ve done.”
    Hazan’s hazel eyes flashed at that, the only outward signof his frustration. Still, he spoke calmly when he said, “That there lingers any uncertainty in your mind that you’ve not committed a grievous error says only to me, sire, that you should have your neck checked by the palace butcher.”
    Kamran almost smiled.
    â€œYou think this is funny?” Hazan took a measured step closer. “You’ve only alerted the kingdom to your presence, only shouted into a crowd every proof of your identity, only marked yourself as a target while entirely unguarded —”
    Kamran unlatched the clasp at his throat, stretched his neck, let the cloak drop. The article was caught by unseen hands, a specter-like servant scraping in, then out of sight with the bloodied garment. In the fraction of a second he saw the blur of the servant’s snoda he was reminded, again, of the girl.
    Kamran dragged a hand down his face, with grim results. He’d forgotten about the boy’s dried blood on his hands and hoped he might forget again. In the interim, he only half listened to the minister’s reprimands, with which he did not at all agree.
    The prince neither saw his actions as foolish, nor did he think it beyond him to be interested in the affairs of the lower classes. Privately, Kamran might allow an argument defending the futility of such an interest—for he knew if he were to concern himself with every violent attack on the city streets he’d scarcely find time to breathe—but apart from the fact that an interest in the lives of the Ardunian people was entirely within the prince’s purview, the morning’s bloodletting had seemed to him more than a randomact of violence. Indeed the more he’d studied the situation the more nefarious it had presented, its actors more complex than first appeared. It had seemed wise, at the time, to insert himself in the situation—
    â€œA situation that concerned two worthless bodies better off extinguished by their own kind,” Hazan said with little emotion. “The girl had seen fit to let the boy go, as you claim—and yet, you found her judgment wanting? You felt it necessary to play God? No, don’t answer that. I don’t think I want to know.”
    Kamran only glanced at his minister.
    Hazan’s lips pressed into a thin line. “I might’ve been motivated to consider the wisdom of your intervention had the boy actually killed the girl. Barring that,” he said flatly, “I can see no excuse for your reckless behavior, sire, no explanation for your