Read Online Children of the Blood by Michelle Sagara West - Free Book Online

to the Lady.”
    “T-the Lady?”
    “Aye. The Lady of Mercy. Haven’t you heard of her?”
    “N-no.”
    “Well then.” He wiped the door fixtures clean. “They don’t like her either, but they won’t kill you for speaking of her. Come on; we’ll do the silver in the mistress’ collection. No one’s there, and we can speak more openly.”
    He picked up his bucket, and Darin followed him in, his legs almost too shaky to carry him.
     
    “Not like that, Darin. You’ll wreck your wrists and you won’t get half the job done. Here. There’s a rough edge along the bottom of the rag; you use it to clean the silver, and the smooth part to polish. Understand?”
    Darin looked dubious. “You have to do this all in one day?” He had never seen so much silver in his life.

    “Aye.” Stev smiled. “But you’ll get good at it; you’ll get faster.” Indeed, he’d already done three times the number of forks that Darin had managed. “You’re lucky you’re not in the kitchen. There’s real work.”
    “Stev, who’s this Lady?”
    “Ah. I thought you’d forgotten.” His smile told Darin that he thought no such thing, but his hands kept working. “We’ve a story here, among the slaves. The Lady of Mercy once walked the world; she was consort to the darkness, but she was like the dawn.”
    “Light?”
    Stev looked pained. “If you must, but that’s a word you should watch as well.”
    “I don’t remember hearing about it.”
    “You didn’t grow up a slave, Darin.”
    Darin was silent, and for the third time that day, Stev sighed. “Come on, none of that. Let me finish my tale.
    “The Lady of Mercy, that’s what we call her, was consort, but her pity tempered the evil Lord, and he loved her greatly. She was a great noble, but it was not the nobility she loved; it was people like us. Slaves.”
    He smiled to himself, only this time the smile was tinged by sadness. “She was a spirit, Darin, or so we believe. She came to us, but something happened. She was forced to leave. And it’s been a darker world since, without mercy.”
    “Then why pray to her?”
    “We pray for her return. We pray for her rest and her peace. One day, each of us’ll be with her. Some sooner than others, but all of us who’ve suffered here have earned her touch and her mercy.”
    Darin shook his head. He’d never heard of any such thing—and anyone who died went Beyond. Even the children knew that.
    As if reading his thoughts, Stev’s smile saddened yet further. “Darin,” he said, putting a fork aside, “maybe in the world you came from, you didn’t need her, and she didn’t come to you. But you’ll learn, soon enough, that we do.”
     
    “Why,” Darin grunted, as he tried to lift the edge of a mahogany table, “are you always so cheerful?”
    Stev swept deftly underneath the shaky space that Darin had created. “Why not?”
    Thud. Leg hit carpet and settled firmly down. “For one, we’re slaves here. They can kill us whenever they want.”

    “True.” The broom was put aside as Stev began to oil the desk top. Darin wrinkled his nose at the smell, but grabbed another cloth. “So?”
    “So?” He rubbed the oil into the wood and grimaced slightly; someone had been drinking at the desk, and not very carefully either. “So what’s there to be cheerful about?”
    “We’re alive.” Stev gave the boy a sly, happy smile. “Mara’s agreed to bed me when we’ve time. We’re not on stone duty.”
    “But you don’t have any choice about what duty you’re on.”
    “No,” the older slave replied. “So?”
    Darin vented most of his frustration on the wood. “I don’t understand you.”
    Stev sighed. Then he smiled. “I’ve never sighed so much in my life as I have since you’ve come.
    “Darin, if I’m miserable, does it change anything? Does it give me freedom or the ability to make my own choices?”
    “Well, no, but-”
    “Right. And if I’m miserable, does it hurt them?”
    “No.”
    “Does