Royal Airs Read Online Free Page B

benches—one for each of the elemental traits—where visitors could sit to meditate themselves back into balance; a tithe box where they could drop donations to pay for the privilege of entering; and a big barrel of metal coins, each stamped with one of the blessing glyphs. There were forty-three specific blessings, so all the barrels held multiples of each, and they were constantly being replenished as visitors kept the coins they were particularly happy to receive.
    But some of those disks stayed in the barrels for years, for decades, picked up and dropped back in again, worn smooth by many hands and constant churning. You couldn’t tell what blessing they were supposed to confer, unless it was the questionable one of mystery. It was supposed to be bad luck to draw one for a newborn. Bad luck, maybe, to draw one for anybody.
    “Well, that is a little strange,” Cora allowed. “But I bet I’d pull something different for you. I bet my sister would.”
    He was amused again. “Somehow, I don’t think we’ll be making a trip to a temple together anytime soon.” She looked like she was going to say something else, so he jumped in with a question of his own. “What are your blessings?”
    She held out her right hand and spread her fingers to show off three rings, one in copper, one in silver, one in gold. Instead of being stamped with glyphs, each ring had the blessings carved out of them, to reveal the smooth skin beneath. “Imagination, courage, and intelligence,” she said.
    He wasn’t qualified to judge on the first attribute, but he’d bet she had the other two in abundance. “Sweela and hunti,” he said. “I would have said you were all sweela.”
    She grinned. “My mother’s sweela and my father is hunti, so it’s not really surprising that I have both kinds of blessings.” She twisted the gold ring on her finger and added, “Although my sister has three elay traits, and she is completely elay in personality, but her mother is hunti and her father was sweela. So you never know.”
    The sister was sounding more and more like a madwoman. The elay folks were all odd, in Rafe’s experience—melodramatically soulful or weirdly empathetic or giggly and ridiculous. He couldn’t remember meeting a single one that he’d actually liked. And this one, who lived in the southern slums and was very likely a harlot, would probably prove to be the craziest one yet.
    Then he registered what Cora had just said. “Wait a minute. If your mother is sweela and your father is hunti—and it’s reversed for your sister—you aren’t really related.”
    For a moment, she looked alarmed, as if afraid she’d betrayed something, then she relaxed again. “We’re stepsisters.”
    “Is your mother married to her father, or is it the other way around?”
    Now she was laughing. “It’s actually more complicated than that.”
    “So you don’t really have a sister at all.”
    “Oh, I have plenty of sisters. I’m just not related to most of them by blood.”
    He settled back more comfortably against the booth and gave her a crooked smile. “You know, I don’t care who you are, why you’re here, or what you’re lying about. But, damn. You’ve got me pretty curious about how exactly your family is connected.”
    “I’m sure your family is just as interesting.”
    “Hardly. My mother’s dead, my stepfather and I aren’t close, and I only see my brother a couple of times a quintile. I don’t really have much of a family.”
    Cora rested her chin in her hand. “Sometimes I think that would be easier. There are days I’d like to see all of them swept away in the Marisi River.”
    “Is that why you ran away? Family problems?”
    Her delicate face, which had grown animated and open, now closed into a scowl again. “In a way. But it’s complicated.”
    You keep saying that, he started to reply, but he never got a chance to say the words. The door opened, and spring stepped inside.
    Of course, that wasn’t what