Prince of Storms Read Online Free

were to be believed. And what they actually looked like, before they changed themselves, the Miserable God only knew.
    Slowly, and stifling a groan, Geng De rose from his chair. His voice wavered. “I will rest now. The binds asked much of me today. Pardon me if I retire, my sister. High Prefect.”
    â€œBut,” Cixi persisted, “Sen Ni must at least make overtures to the Jinda ceb. She will travel to the Inyx sway in any case. The minoral of the Paion is nearby.”
    â€œJinda ceb Horat,” Geng De corrected. “ Paion is the old word, we must remember.”
    Oh, he dared to correct her! “But Paion is how the All has thought of them for archons of time. Paion is the face they must overcome if they wish acceptance in the sways. They will need Sen Ni’s support to send sweet dreams of them into the land. Sen Ni should win them over. Before Titus Quinn does.”
    The navitar turned to the view port, gazing out as though he saw strands there even without immersion. He did seem to wish to be there rather than here . What did he do for days at a time in that crystal chamber beyond the view port? Weaving, so he said. If it could be believed.
    He leaned close to Sen Ni. “Do not reach out to them when they first arrive, Sister. Begin the dream war against your father first. See your beloved Riod. Make sure he loves you as I do.”
    He kissed Sen Ni briefly on the mouth. Ever so brotherly, but Cixi wanted to beat him senseless with his cane.

    Sen Ni supported Cixi on her arm as the two of them climbed the passageway up to street level. The underground chamber allowed Geng De to enter the river in secret, rather than in an exposed ship. Her father would be looking for Geng De; they had met in the binds, and Geng De had tried to drive Titus home with threats. It hadn’t worked, as she could have told Geng De if he’d asked her first.
    Cixi was slow, but stronger than she looked. She had, after all, killed a Tarig lord with her own hands. Stiletto in the eye , Cixi had smirked. Of course he was quite softened up by then… .
    Cixi said, “The Jinda ceb did not fight for a thousand thousand days to build their house on a mist.”
    â€œAre we a mist, Mother?”
    â€œYes, dear girl. Mist. The Entire will fade. Geng De spends too much time in the river to notice, perhaps. The Jinda ceb must engage the engine again.”
    â€œLet me think on it.” A great deal of work lay ahead of them, and Geng De was right: The Jinda ceb were not even here yet. Titus should be exposed as a danger to the land. Titus, the man who once had said he had no wish to rule and who now ruled in fact. The pain of that was too fresh to revisit.
    Cixi murmured, “When the bear looks upon you the first time, he decides if you are meal or master.”
    First impressions. Would the Jinda ceb see her as the cowed young daughter of the king?
    â€œGive me time, Mother.” Cixi’s power was still remarkable; she had learned almost every intelligence that had come to Titus in the days since he banished the high prefect. She knew most of what Ji Anzi was teaching Titus about the Jinda ceb: that they had never ridden on the backs of their automatons of war. Those entities had been war creatures, bred for the fight. Cixi had also learned that the Jinda ceb possessed a visionary field called Manifest where they decided civic matters in common. The spies had also reported that the Jinda ceb wanted foremost to come home. And by home they meant the place where they had heretofore been, at the Scar in the Long Gaze of Fire Primacy, where they would reattach their minoral—adrift these many ages. So, in the end, it had been another great Tarig lie that the Scar marked the scene of a Paion incursion and heroic battle. The Tarig had even gone so far as to say they themselves had fought there, as though the fiends would have exposed themselves to danger!
    Sen Ni opened the door to the navitar