Read Online The Fall by Christie Meierz - Free Book Online

his little body stiff and trembling and breathing in tiny gasps. “Notify my grandson’s apothecary,” he said to the guard at the door, and strode into the audience room.
    Kellandin followed more slowly, keeping his distance.
    A few paces later, Veryth gulped as much air as his tiny lungs could hold and arched his back, uttering a shriek that left the Paran’s ears ringing. A guard flickered, startled, and Vondra, who would have known the instant her son injured himself, rushed through the doorway from the main hall, arms outstretched. With relief, he surrendered the child, who clung to his mother’s neck like a young scurrybrush, sobbing hysterically.
    “He ran into my desk,” he said, “very like the way you did at the same age. I notified the apothecaries.”
    Vondra nodded, face pinched. “My gratitude, Father.” She spun and hurried off.
    A sympathetic chuckle came to his lips and died away. Until the apothecaries soothed the boy’s considerable distress, his grandson would broadcast it to everyone around him. He expelled a breath. In proximity to small children learning what they could and could not do while camouflaged, the ruling bond tended to hinder more than help.
    “We will continue this discussion another time,” he said to Kellandin, and headed for the nearest door to the gardens.
    Outside, autumn had moderated the early afternoon heat to a pleasant temperature. He chose a path to the far wall of the stronghold grounds, letting the sun’s warmth ease away the tension in his neck and shoulders, and shrank his empathic awareness into himself, to minimize the needle-stab of Veryth’s discomfort, magnified as it was through every pledged adult in contact with him, not least Vondra.
    Vondra. His daughter had proved herself an extraordinary asset as his ambassador. If Monralar’s heir ever convinced her to advocate for interstellar trade in the near term, rather than to wait on the Sural’s plan, the years until the Sural’s heir Kyza came of age would become an exercise in patience.
    Senses thus pulled in, he strolled into the outer garden and did not notice his Laura before his eyes fell on her. Her dark purple robe blended into the deep shade under a corner of the keep and a tree, as she sat huddled over a sketchbook in creative ecstasy.
    He hunched down and looked over her shoulder. The scene coming to life under her hand existed nowhere on Tolar: a house, a very large house, of a style he had seen in archives obtained from human sources—rectangular, made of a vast number of tiny bricks, with a sloping roof. Columns at the entry arch spanned the first two floors. A floor above that, with many windows, reached from a wing on the left to a wing on the right, the whole surrounded by plants sculpted into tall cones and spirals.
    Her hand hitched, and stopped, and she looked up at him. Smudges marked her face where she had brushed hair back with sooty fingers, and a dark line smeared outward from one corner of her mouth—she had sucked on the charcoal stylus again. A pleased smile began to curve her lips. Then she frowned.
    “What’s wrong?” she asked in English.
    “My grandson ran about camouflaged,” he replied in the same language, “and collided with the desk in my open study.”
    She winced. “Is he all right?”
    “He will not have damaged himself too badly. We almost all of us do something similar as children.” He planted a kiss on her temple. “What have you drawn?”
    “The summer house in Boston.” She turned her attention back to it with a sly grin. “It’s not quite as large as your stronghold. Papa liked to spend family time in a setting he considered cozy.” She pointed at a window at one end of the top floor. “My rooms were here. Just a bedroom and a bath. And all my stuffies.”
    He opened his mouth to ask what those might be, but she went on.
    “Toy animals made of stuffed fabric, soft and fuzzy. Papa brought one home every time he returned from a business trip,