Read Online Playing God by Sarah Zettel - Free Book Online Page B

touched and tugged at. Voices laughed and called, and babbled out more questions than could possibly be answered. Praeis felt warmth mounting inside her. With half an eye she watched her daughters. Res and Theia hesitated a little. They'd seldom had such a crowd around them, but they quickly relaxed into it, touching and being touched, laughing, naming themselves and having names called back to them. A fierce happiness surged through Praeis, one she hadn't felt in years. She was passed from hand to hand. She grasped arms and shoulders and ears, shouted names and greetings until she was hoarse. The happiness in her blood and skin filled her with fire and strength enough to make her drunk and dizzy.
    Then, she looked up and saw that the hands she held belonged to her sisters. Proud, wide-eyed Senejess, and warm Armetrethe, who'd lost her left arm in a skirmish years ago.
    “Armetrethe! Senejess!” Laughing, Praeis threw herself into her sisters’ embrace.
    “Praeis!” Their strong arms wrapped around her. They all whooped with love and joy as they held one another, drinking in scent and sound and solid presence.
    I'm home. I'm home!
thought Praeis, almost delirious with the wonder of holding her sisters.
    “Well, come now!” Senejess finally said. “We cannot stand here making riot in the streets. Let's get ourselves indoors.”
    With her sisters’ arms tight and strong around her shoulders, Praeis let herself be steered toward the house. The cousins and daughters flocked around them, blocking the view of the grounds and the outbuildings. Here and there, she caught a glimpse of a familiar wall, or cluster of stones in the garden and her heart lifted until she thought it could go no higher.
    They spilled through the doors of the main house and into the great room. The family fanned out, dropping onto the sofas arranged in clusters around the tiled space. The vibrant greens, blues, and golds created stylized scenes of sea cliffs and forests to surround them all. The tall slit windows let in the daylight to mix with the mellow light of oil lamps. Praeis inhaled the scent of warm oil with a start. The electricity probably wouldn't come on until after dark. She hadn't thought about power rationing in years.
    Still, the room was as she remembered it. It was beautiful. It was home.
    She collapsed with Senejess and Armetrethe onto a sofa. Res and Theia dropped straight to the sand-colored mats that covered the floor with a cluster of cousins about their own age, languid and relaxed.
    They talked easily for a while, about the colonies, about the daughters. The conversation turned colder and drew them closer to one another as they talked about the plague and the long lists of the dead.
    Finally, Senejess shook Praeis's shoulder lightly. “Tell us what the Queens were so anxious about they couldn't let you come home first, Sister.”
    Between their cousins, Res and Theia stiffened, but said nothing.
    Praeis struggled to rise above the enveloping warmth that surrounded her so she could choose her words carefully. “They wanted my thanks for their pardon, Sister, and to inform me I was now their official representative.”
    Senejess looked from her to Armetrethe and pulled Praeis into a close embrace. “I'm so glad, Sister.”
    Slowly, Praeis realized she was, but that Senejess was also disappointed. She was hoping for more than Praeis had said. A cool thread began to ease through the warmth of her blood. Her skin rippled, and she extricated herself from her sister's arms. “They didn't mention money yet, of course. Is that not how it always is with the Majestic Sisters? Order now, pay when you work out how.”
    Before they laughed, another look passed between Armetrethe and Senejess, just a flicker, but nonetheless too long to be imagined.
    “So,” Praeis tried hard to sound completely conversational. “Tell me how things stand in the Council of True Blood.”
    Armetrethe shrugged. The stump of her missing arm flailed