Read Online Kingslayer by Honor Raconteur - Free Book Online Page A

strong, perhaps too strong.
    They took a right into another hallway that looked like an exact replica of the one they’d just left. The sole difference that Darius could detect was the sound of water splashing in the gardens outside the window and the stronger scent of jasmine. How did people navigate this place?
    “General.”
    Darius turned his head slightly. Sego had a very serious look on his face, almost a frown. “Yes?”
    “You do not need to be considerate of me.” Sego’s voice had an unnatural neutrality to it, a tone leached of all emotion. “My leg was damaged when I was a child. I am used to it.”
    A very strong sense of pride indeed. Pride developed, perhaps, because of that lifetime of proving to people that Sego was just as capable as anyone else in spite of the leg? Darius took care with how he answered. “I do not believe in pushing men past their physical limits. No good comes from that.”
    Sego stopped dead, a retort ready to fly.
    Darius held up a hand to stop him. “I do not know you well enough yet to know where your limits are. You do not know me well enough to ask for a reprieve when you need it. I will not break a man who is working so hard for me by making careless assumptions.”
    Sego regarded him for a long moment, dark eyes unreadable. Darius met him look for look and waited.
    “Permission to speak frankly, General?” Sego asked quietly.
    Finally! “Please do.”
    “You’re supposed to be a monstrous man who is driven solely by ambition, someone who has no regard for others. Your reputation describes you as such, anyway.” Sego’s stern expression relaxed and his eyes crinkled up into a half-smile. “I do not know how to react to this thoughtful, considerate man.”
    Ahhh. So that was the problem?
    “Think of my reputation as mental warfare,” Darius suggested in amusement. “After all, which would you rather face on a battlefield: a monstrous general or a kind one?”
    Sego shook his head and continued walking. “Point made, General. A point very well made.”
    ~~~
    Darius let the coolness of the stone seep into his back and legs as he sat on the windowsill. The night air was a wealth of sounds, both from insects and the splashes of water fountains. To his right and just out of sight, the women’s open bath apparently had visitors, as he could hear several women singing and giggling. He found it…soothing to listen to. A woman’s laughter was the best music, to his mind.
    His bed sat not five feet from him, silently promising rest, but it did not really tempt him. He felt…out of place here. Strangely so. Despite the oath he had made to the queen, despite all of the work he had done in the past two days to protect this country, it did not feel like home to him. He silently prayed that this feeling would not last long. The odds of ever being able to return to Arape were, after all, very slim.
    Bohme appeared in the shadow of his doorway, entering soundlessly. “Should shleep, shir,” he said softly.
    Darius spared him a glance before turning his eyes toward the open window. The moonlight splaying across the gardens and reflecting off the moving water captivated his eyes and he stared downwards as he answered. “I’ve been running for so long I don’t know how to relax anymore.”
    “Lying on bed will help you remember,” Bohme suggested dryly.
    Caught a little off guard, Darius chuckled. “Bohme, I didn’t know you had a sense of humor.”
    “I try,” he responded with false modestly.
    Darius’s laughter faded into a sigh. “Too much has changed too quickly, I think. It all caught up to me just now. I don’t know how to react to some of it.”
    Bohme eased further in, coming to stand beside the same window. “Regretting oath?”
    “No.” Darius didn’t even have to think about that. “No, Brindisi has to be stopped. I think helping save Niotan is the best way to accomplish that. Tresea is a good queen, too. I have no qualms in serving her.” He let