Read Online The Adorned by John Tristan - Free Book Online

back with ribbons so she could eat without them drooping in her plate. I snuck a glance at her now and then, though nothing of her Adornment could be seen.
    Tallisk was at the head of the table. He wore simple breeches and a white cotton shirt. He would not have looked too far out of place dining in Lun’s inn, save for his well-scrubbed hands. Another thing set him apart: his shirt’s collar was slightly open, its laces only half-tied, and my eyes were drawn to the triangle of skin on display at his breastbone. There I saw the terminus of some bold design, a starburst of deepest blue.
    Of course, all tattoo-masters, before they could claim such a title, had years of practice on themselves, and on each other. In public he would have to cover them, but this was his own house, and he was free to show them or not as he preferred. His own tattoos did not shift and breathe, like the ones on Isadel’s skin. Still, it discomfited me to see them so casually displayed, mostly because they kept drawing my gaze.
    I averted my eyes, deliberately looking at the food on my plate instead of Tallisk. What if he saw, and thought me rude for staring? I was rude, to gape so openly. My cheeks felt hot, even in the comfortable cool of the room. It seemed I had not ceased blushing for hours.
    “Etan,” Isadel said, and I started. She was looking at me, smiling, with her fork half-raised between plate and mouth. “That’s an unusual name.” She took a bite, chewing it slowly and swallowing before speaking again. “Are you Gaelta? You have such fine green eyes.”
    I blinked, taken aback by her compliment, but recovered enough to answer. “I am half so, on my father’s side.”
    She looked between me and Doiran. “I thought that Gaelta did not mark their bodies—that their gods forbade it.”
    “I’m half-Gaelta by blood, but I was raised with Keredy ways. I barely speak Gaelte. Just some songs, really.” Landless now, the Gaelta marked their borders with their language. My father stopped speaking it to me when I was five, mindful that I was picking up his accent. I never heard it from his tongue after that, save when he was dying. Even then, though, in those last awful days, hearing its cadences had been an odd comfort to me. Maybe it was just that he’d used the same tongue to sing my lullabies, once upon a time.
    She lifted her brows. “I did not mean to offend.”
    “I’m not—I didn’t mean—” I bit my lips, looking at Doiran, but he seemed nonplussed. Lowland Gaelta were proud of their tongue, but they still lived among the remnants of long-ago conquest: shattered stone circles, upturned grave mounds and desecrated quarries. Perhaps it was different in the Grey City, where dozens of languages warred and mingled—where the guards would stop Keredy soldiers from kicking in a half-breed boy’s head.
    “No matter,” Isadel said, smiling. “If they are willing, and look the part, any could become Adorned, whether Keredy, Gaelta or even Surammer. Is that not so, Master Tallisk?”
    He made a grunting, noncommittal reply.
    “Speaking of Suramm,” she went on, gesturing animatedly with her fork. “The Count tells me Lord Loren is returned at last from Er Surain. With a new Surammer aide-de-camp in tow.”
    This perked Yana’s interest; she looked up from her plate. “A war captive?”
    “No, a turncoat, or so I’m told. The catamite of a Surammer warlord, nonetheless. And what’s more—”
    Tallisk seemed uninterested in the gossip; he cut off Isadel’s next breath with a request for more wine. She scowled at him, but it seemed in good humor.
    “What did Gandor have to say?” she asked him.
    He snorted. “I think you know. Further displays with your Count to arrange. He is become greedy for you, Isadel.”
    She waved her fork airily. “It gives a chance to be seen. That’s not to be belittled.”
    Tallisk snorted again, and returned to contemplation of his wine-goblet.
    Doiran had poured wine for us all, and