Read Online The Dragon's Path by Daniel Abraham - Free Book Online Page B

heard it said that the lowest of the ancient buildings, down in the huge midden at the great canyon’s base, were older than the dragons themselves. Camnipol, the eternal city. His city, at the heart of his nation and his race. Apart from his family, Dawson loved nothing better.
    And then he had crossed the great span of air, and the driver turned into his narrow private square. His mansion rose up, its clean, sweeping lines elegant free of the gaudy filigree with which upstarts like Feldin Maas, Alan Klin, and Curtin Issandrian tarted up their homes. His home was classic and elegant, and it looked out over the void to the Kingspire and the wide plain beyond it, the noblest house in the city, barring perhaps Lord Bannien of Estinford’s estate.
    His servants brought out the steps, and Dawson waved away the offered hands as he always did. It was their duty to offer, and his dignity required that he refuse. The ritual was the important thing. The door slave, an old Tralgu with light brown skin and silver hair at the tips of his ears, stood by the entryway. A silver chain bound him to the black marble column.
    “Welcome home, my lord,” the slave said. “A letter has come from your son.”
    “Which son?”
    “Jorey, my lord.”
    Dawson felt a twist in his gut. Had it been from one of his other children, he could have read the news with unalloyed pleasure, but a letter from Jorey was a letter from the loathed Vanai campaign. With trepidation, he held out his hand. The door slave turned his head toward the door.
    “Your lady wife has it, my lord.”
    The interior of the mansion was dark tapestry and bright crystal. His dogs bounded down the stairway yipping with excitement; five wolfhounds with shining grey fur and teeth of ivory. Dawson scratched their ears, patted their sides, and walked back to the solarium and his wife.
    The glass room was a consolation he gave his Clara. It spoiled the lines of the building on the north side, but she could cultivate the pansies and violets that grew in the hills of Osterling. The reminder of home made her more nearly content during the seasons in Camnipol, and she kept the house smelling of violets all through the winter. She sat now in a deep chair, a small desk at her side, the tables of dark blooms arrayed around her like soldiers on parade. She looked up at the sound of his steps and smiled.
    Clara had always been perfect. If the years had taken some of the rose from her cheeks, if her black hair was shot with white, he could still see the girl she had been. There had been rarer beauties and sharper poets when Dawson’s father had chosen the womb that would carry his grandchildren. But instead he had picked Clara, and it had taken Dawson no time at all to appreciate the wisdom of that choice. She was good at heart. She might have been a paragon in all other things, but if she had not been good, those other virtues would have turned to ash. Dawson leaned down, kissing her lips as he always did. It was a ritual like refusing the footman’s help and scratching the hounds’ ears. It gave life meaning.
    “We’ve heard from Jorey?” he said.
    “Yes,” she said. “He’s fine. He’s having a wonderful time in the field. His captain is Adria Klin’s boy Alan. He says they’re getting along quite nicely.”
    Dawson leaned against a flower table, arms crossed. The twinge in his belly grew worse. Klin. Another of FeldinMaas’s cabal. It had been like a bone in the throat when the king had placed Jorey under the man, and it still brought a little taste of anger thinking of it.
    “Oh, and he says he’s serving with Geder Palliako, but that can’t be right, can it? Isn’t that the strange little pudgy man with the enthusiasm for maps and comic rhyme?”
    “You’re thinking of Lerer Palliako. Geder’s his son.”
    “Oh,” Clara said with a wave of her hand. “That makes much more sense, because I couldn’t see him going out in the field again at his age. I think we’re