The Nightborn by Isabel Cooper (good english books to read .TXT) 📕

Altiensarn nodded. “That name is also unfamiliar, but my brood was raised far from Kvanla. The sea is much colder there, I hear.”

“Most places are, in my experience.” Branwyn hesitated over the story and then said to the other outsider what she wouldn’t have said to Zelen. “A few of the Adeptas, the Order’s scholars and leaders, used to debate whether Heliodar got off lightly because it was farther south to begin with, and near the ocean, or because Thyran still couldn’t bear to strike his home too hard.”

“I would be very much inclined to believe the former,” said Altiensarn.

“Me too. Practically speaking, the spell never exactly worked as he intended—he got stuck in time before he could build it up and direct it as much as he wanted, or so say witnesses.”

“The general who I hear has come back?”

“Him, and the soul in my friend Darya’s sword.” There was a long and involved story there, one that Branwyn didn’t entirely know was hers to share. Besides, she was trying to keep her mind off of soulswords. She moved on. “From all I’ve heard, Thyran had no reason to feel at all fondly toward the city either. I’d have expected it to be his first target, really, or the most severely hit one, if he’d had things entirely his way.” Branwyn laughed without humor. “I should’ve made that argument to the council while they’d still listen to me.”

“You may yet have their ear,” said Altien, calm as ever. “But I wouldn’t be certain, myself, in your estimation of Thyran.”

“Gods know I’m not overly familiar with the man, and glad about that, but how so?”

“People’s sentimental attachments very rarely obey common sense, in my experience. I have often found it surprising to witness what one can still be fond of, or want to believe, even in the face of hostility.”

* * *

“Thank you for joining me,” said Gedomir, standing up from behind his desk and bowing quickly before waving Zelen to a seat in one of the hard horsehair chairs facing him. “I hope the roads are still adequately maintained. We’ve had workers out, of course, but haven’t been able to properly supervise them this year.”

“The ground’s what it is in winter, but they did a good job,” said Zelen, not wanting to expose the laborers to his brother’s notion of proper supervision.

“Good. Good. Your journey was a pleasant one then?”

“Fairly, thank you.”

There were always more pleasantries here, where Zelen was the visitor. Until a few years before, he’d assumed Gedo was busier in the city. Eventually he’d come to see the truth: a matter of territory and control, points awarded based on who could get their business over with first.

Asking about the reason for his summons would annoy Gedomir, and Zelen needed his goodwill just then. Besides, he had the entire evening, and it wasn’t as though there were more congenial places in the house than the study.

A few changes had taken place in that room: a couple new books stood in the cases against the wall behind Gedomir, their covers catching the yellow magelight with more of a shine than those of the other, more weathered volumes. The portrait of their great-grandfather had been reframed, and the man’s hawklike features peered out from a border of dull gold, ugly but expensive. The heavy curtains were the same, and so were the dark desk and chairs, but while the bookcases themselves hadn’t changed, the shadow one of them cast was subtly different.

“Has the council discussed the succession?” Gedomir asked.

“Not in any useful way,” said Zelen, “or I would’ve written.”

“You’ve had a great deal on your mind lately.”

“Nonetheless.” He let the point go. “The obvious heir is Kolovat.”

Var, said a voice: high, female, and familiar, though Zelen couldn’t for the life of him have said who it was. He blinked and glanced behind him.

Nobody was there. That, after a second, was no real shock. The voice hadn’t sounded like it came from anywhere in the study.

It had been inside his head.

Verengir.

“Zelen? Is everything all right?”

“Ah. Yes, sorry. Thought I heard a fly.”

Gedomir frowned. “If you do, I’ll have words with the servants.”

“No, no.” Zelen hastily waved off the complaint. “You’re right. I’ve had too much on my mind lately. I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to repeat yourself.”

The way Gedomir smirked was also familiar. Zelen had seen the expression when he’d fallen off his first horse and started wailing. “I was saying that Kolovat is the obvious heir, if one measures simply by duration in the post. Starovna was bred and raised to nobility, so it would come far more easily to her.”

Zelen had never noticed either of the councillors struggling with their duties. Gods knew that Kolovat, who’d been an army officer before a few uncles had died childless, acted far more sure of himself than Zelen, “bred and raised” to his status, ever felt. He didn’t make the argument, both for the same reasons that had kept him from speeding the conversation and because he knew it would make no difference. “I’m not certain she wants it. She’s a great one for her studies, you know.”

Verengir, said the voice again. It was clouded and cracked, as though coming to him through a wind-filled tunnel. …ind. The…

He tried to appear interested in the matter of Starovna versus Kolovat, and only in that.

“It hardly matters what she prefers. She knows—” said Gedomir, and then there was a knock on the door. “Yes?”

His anger was icy. He’d come to sound entirely like their father at such times. Zelen’s back twinged with memory.

It wasn’t a hapless servant standing at the door, but Hanyi, the younger of Zelen’s two sisters. She usually had more of a friendly word for Zelen than his other siblings did, but just then didn’t even seen to see him. “I’m sorry,” she said, “but you’re needed.”

“Incompetence,” said Gedomir, in the same tones other men might have used to curse. “Wait here, would you?