The Lotus Ascension Read Online Free Page A

led from the
stable. Sillara watched them both mount their horses, and the differences
between them brought a smile to her lips. Konas was an Ausir, with the wide,
large eyes and high cheekbones of his species. His horns, unlike Sillara's own,
did not curve back around his skull but rather branched up and out through the
gold of his long hair. His green eyes were more purely emerald than Ajalira's,
and his skin was an almost marble fairness. Kamen was as dark as Konas was
fair, but his black dreadlocks were streaked with grey. Though Konas was as old
for an Ausir as her father was for a human, Konas, being Ausir, did not show
his age on his face.
    As soon as
Ajalira was settled into the litter, Sillara followed her. “I am sorry your
gown is so hot,” said Ajalira, and Sillara swallowed the laughter that bubbled
up in her.
    “ I am well, Mother.” Sillara smoothed down the pale blue silk of her
Ausir-cut gown. The high neck and fitted bodice were, admittedly, more
confining than the translucent Sunjaa linen her mother wore, but Sillara had
been wearing Ausir fashions for the past ten years. She was used to them. What
amused her was that her mother should think of her clothes. “It will not
matter,” said Sillara, suddenly understanding Ajalira's real thought. “No one
will be thinking of me at all anyway. It will not be seen as an official
reception of Captain Orien's ship by the Ausir Queen just because I am wearing
Ausir clothes. I do not care about the ship. I am just a girl going to meet her
sailor-brother after his first two years of service.”
    “ I know,” said Ajalira, patting Sillara's hand. “I suppose I am just
worried because I can't really believe that he's back, that he's alive. How can
you be so calm? So collected?” Ajalira was, Sillara knew, only half teasing.
    “ Because I was never worried. Unlike you, Mother, I am not now in a different state from the one
I was in an hour ago.” The litter shifted beneath them, and the even tread of
the litter-bearers ate up the distance between the Itenu estate and the docks.
    Though Ajalira
kept the curtains closed, Sillara did not need to see to know that the streets
were packed with people. The crowds, of course, made way for the Itenu
entourage. Sillara smiled. She supposed there were about two dozen guards
around her litter. This was the first time she had been outside the gates of
the Itenu estate in six months, the last time having been the King's private
celebration upon the birth of his latest son by his second concubine. She
traced over the little Itenu falcon just over her heart on her left breast.
Soren had gotten his the day before he put to sea, and her parents had been
furious over hers, which was the same design, only smaller. Ausir did not
tattoo their flesh. That was a human convention, and she was to be the Queen of
the Ausir.
    Sillara
fidgeted. She was of noble birth on her father's side, royal on her mother's,
and she would never dream of failing in her duty. But King Tivanel Seranimesti
of the Ausir was only a name to her, and she did not look forward to leaving
Arinport for Tivanel's city of Duildal.
    Despite the
fact that she had not been to the docks for two years, not since Soren's ship
had put to sea, in fact, she remembered each street with perfect clarity. She
knew that they were now within sight of the harbor, knew that within three more paces they would be able to see Soren's ship.
    And at three
paces, the litter jarred so strongly that Sillara was pitched into her mother's
lap.
    “ Abrexa's chain!” Konas's muttered curse was only a little softer than Kamen's low
whistle.
    Sillara pulled
apart the curtains and looked out at the harbor. There, with the serpent flag
of the Sunjaa King flying just above the speared boar
of Captain Orien, was not the sleek Sunjaa caravel in which Soren had set out.
Instead she saw a large galleon. It rode low in the water, obviously full of
plunder, and the figurehead was an upraised fist with a