Read Online The Modern World by Steph Swainston - Free Book Online Page A

the sights of the city. That morning they had visited the Agrimony Campanile, the church at the place where the Emperor was born, and the great bronze façade of Aver-Falconet’s palace. Harrier went to sign into the Costrel Hotel and when he turned his back, she vanished.’
    ‘I would, too, with an itinerary that dull,’ I said.
    Lightning gave me a look with the force of every minute of his fourteen hundred and forty years. He was older than everything in this reclaimed valley, even Lowespass Fortress that you would have thought immutable. I shivered.
    ‘It is not easy to give Harrier Disante the slip. He could have traced her anywhere but in Hacilith.’
    ‘Did he see any kidnappers?’ I asked.
    ‘No. When she started the tour I thought it was essential tutoring for her to see the world, but now I am afraid she is learning too much.I would do anything for Cyan, buy her any present, let her travel anywhere except she must not be alone in the city.’
    ‘I can put your mind at rest,’ I said. ‘I’ll go to Hacilith and see if I can discover news. If I can find Cyan, I’ll bring her back.’
    Frost stared at me with incredulity. ‘You’re joking, aren’t you?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘On the eve of the advance? Certainly not.’
    ‘It’s only four days’ flight there and back,’ I said blithely. ‘You’ll scarcely notice I’ve gone.’
    ‘Of course I will!’ Frost snatched her notebook off the table and held it pressed to her chest, her arms folded across it and her eyes round. ‘Honestly, Jant. Another of your picaroon ideas! Just because it’s Lightning’s daughter. Just because it’s him! Quite frankly I think all those beads you wear are cutting off the blood supply to your brain. The Emperor asked thee to work for me this year. Thou knowest I need thy help. I need communication and logistics more than anything else!’
    I can tell Frost is distraught when she starts to pepper her speech with the remains of her old Brandoch accent. Nobody, not even in the Plainslands, has spoken like that since the seventeenth century.
    I said, ‘I’ve already sent out my dispatches. The troops are on their way and no matter how much I chivvy them, they won’t march any faster. I want to see you raise the gate as much as the journalists do, but it’s eight days from now. Even if I don’t find Cyan, I can easily make it back in that time.’
    Eleonora said, ‘How like an Eszai to take too much on!’
    Lightning said, ‘Frost is right. When Cyan was kidnapped before, I deserted my duty and went looking for her even though Insects were swarming. The Emperor was unforgiving – and rightly so – because there are still bite marks in the gates of Shivel manor house and paper stains in the parlour of Tanager Hall. San only gave me one more chance and his decrees are set in stone. I do not want to have to crawl to him like that again. He went so far as to say that every one of those thousands of people killed had been worth as much as Cyan.’
    ‘You’re afraid of the Emperor.’
    ‘Yes, I am. For myself and for you.’
    Frost said, ‘How old is this Cyan, anyway?’
    ‘Seventeen,’ said Lightning, refilling his glass.
    ‘Seventeen!’ Frost exclaimed.
    Seventeen … I thought, and confirmed my decision to go and find her. Mortals seem to age very fast these days. I had been thinking of her as a child but now she must have a mind of her own, and a bodytoo. Her father was born with the silver spoon and could afford to believe the best of human nature. Her mother, who died at Tris five years ago, was a schemer convinced of humanity’s worst. How had these traits mixed in Cyan? How had she turned out?
    Frost said, ‘She’s probably just enjoying herself and she’ll come back when she’s ready. Don’t you remember what it was like to be seventeen?’
    ‘Yes. Why do you think I’m worried? I did a lot of stupid things when I was that age … There was that incident with my father’s chariot and the lake …