Empire of Dust Read Online Free

orders.”
    Heph unbuckles his sword belt and places it on the table, feeling as he had the time they were fording a particularly violent river and he fell off his horse. He’d struggled against the heavy armor weighing him down, unable to breathe, until another soldier pulled him out. Everything he has built and dreamed of and hoped for is slipping away from him, and he doesn’t know how to get it back. He takes a deep breath. “All right,” he says, his voice flat and professional. “I’ll return now.”
    â€œNo need,” Alex says. “I put Ortinos in charge of it. He’s a farmer’s son himself, and I think the farmers will heed him. But you can help Achaus supervise the restoration of the library.”
    Heph winces. Another administrative role, nearly as insulting as the last. But he nods curtly. “Yes, my lord.” He exits quickly before he can see Alex’s response to his formality. Heph hasn’t used Alexander’s title since his first days at the palace, and the words burn his throat. He swallows hard.
    * * *
    The smell of smoke and charred wood still lingers from the Aesarian Lords’ fire, though it was a full week ago, as Heph approaches the blackened façade of the royal library. Only the far west section of the gold marble building collapsed—the secret archives and a section of the main reading room next door. Overseeing the crumbling building is another menial job, well beneath Heph’s rank and skill, but at least with this one, he can be outside, away from the stuffy little office. As in battle, he will be directing men, even if it’s only where to move a ladder.
    â€œWe have cleared enough debris to make a thorough examination of the foundations,” Achaus, the royal architect, says, wiping sweat and ashes from his bald, domelike head with a strip of linen cloth.
    â€œGood,” Heph says. “There’s no point in repairing the upper levels if the entire structure is going to collapse. Would you show me the most damaged areas?”
    Achaus nods and hands Heph a cloth, which he immediately ties around his nose and mouth. The architect leads him to the far end of the building where they descend a small winding staircase into darkness, coolness, and ashes. The air, still heavy with smoke, stings Heph’s eyes. He holds his torch high. “Where are the weight-bearing walls?” he asks, voice muffled.
    â€œThis is one,” the architect says, striding down the corridor and pointing with his torch. “Some of the blocks are scorched but...” The man continues to talk, but something itches Heph’s nose, and he stops listening. There’s a smell, something that lurks under the scent of smoke, soot, and charred wood. Heph pulls the cloth off his face.
    â€œWhat is it?”
    â€œA moment,” Heph says and takes a deep breath. The smell is still there. It reminds him of the time he accompanied King Philip and Alex on a mission to ferret out cattle raiders in the hills and they came across the decayed bodies of their advance team, swarming with flies.
    Achaus takes off his own cloth and sniffs the air. They walk down the hallway, looking right and left, carefully studying the walls by the light of their torches. He and Achaus enter a large room directly under the main reading room, shafts of daylight pouring through holes in the half-burnt floor of the devastated room above. The smell seems to be stronger in here, but all he sees is a jumble of old desks and bookshelves.
    â€œWhere is it coming from?” he asks, stopping before a wall decorated with patterns of cemented-on scallop shells.
    â€œI think it’s coming from behind this wall,” Achaus says. “There’s a secret chamber built here.”
    Heph nods. Everyone knows that Philip has a rabbit’s warren of hidden rooms and passageways throughout the palace. Years ago, he and Alex found several during their