The Eunuch's Heir Read Free

nudged the prince with his elbow, attempting a more cheerful tone.
    “No, I might be a while. I’ll walk back alone.” With a halfhearted wave, Wolfram turned away. “Maybe I’ll meet a friendly pickpocket to lighten my way,” he called back over his shoulder.
    “Goddess walk with you!” Dylan called after him.
    Wolfram waved again without turning. Dylan’s mind was already off in the stars, he knew, following their patterns and charting the moon. As for himself, Wolfram had more earthly pleasures in mind. He longed for the peace and comfort of a woman who neither knew nor cared who he was, a woman who did not know the darkness that pursued him. He rounded a corner and trotted down a series of short stone steps. At the bottom, his lover’s door stood open, as if she knew just when to expect him. She herself stood in the doorway, wearing the linen chemise he had bought for her, her figure outlined through the thin fabric by flickering candles. “My lord, come in out of the dark,” she whispered, holding out a warm hand to him.
    Smiling, he obeyed.
     
    SOMETIME LATER, Wolfram lay on his belly, his chin propped on his crossed arms, staring vaguely at a scrap on the floor. It almost looked like one of Dylan’s star charts. He thought of the Love Star and smiled. His lover slowly drew her long red hair along his spine, eliciting a shiver of pleasure. “I love your hair,” he murmured into the semidarkness.
    She laughed, drawing her face near to his to kiss him lightly. This close, he could see the fine lines around her eyes—she was old enough to be his mother, but beautiful, and very good at what she did. She treated him merely as a man, like any other—not blessed with a saintly father, nor cursed by the Lady’s prophet. With her alone he could shed the weight of his own failings. She twirled a lock of his blond hair around her finger. “I’m glad. I do it for you, my love.”
    He frowned, tilting his head sideways to look up at her. “Do what?”
    “Dye it,” she replied, blinking. “But you knew that.”
    “What do you mean?” The frown intensified as he gazed upon her face. A small, cold doubt began to creep along the spine she had so recently caressed.
    She laughed again—and the sound did not seem so light to him—shaking her head so that the red hair rippled about her. “You know it’s not natural.”
    He sat up abruptly, forcing her to move back on the narrow bed, nearly sliding her off onto the rough wood floor. The cold grew inside him, fastening itself with sharp claws of anger where some soft, forgiving organ should have been. The demon defending his heart unfurled. “No, why would I know that? I can’t believe you’ve been deceiving me!”
    She stood up, crossing her arms over her still-lovely breasts. “Because you dye yours, silly, that’s how. I haven’t deceived you, any more than you have deceived me.” In the flickering golden light, she appeared suddenly both young and strange, no longer playful, any trace of softness slipping from her sharp features.
    Wolfram narrowed his eyes at her. “I don’t dye my hair—I’m seventeen, why would I dye my hair?” Tension gripped his shoulders, the demon pounding inside his skull, struggling to get out even as he struggled to contain it.
    She shrugged. “Dye, bleach—what’s the difference?”
    “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he replied, pressing his palms to his temples, staring at her like the whore that she was.
    Her hand flashed out and snatched a lock of his hair, pulling it almost taut between them. In the other hand, she offered a lock of her own. “Feel the texture; it’s rough—natural hair doesn’t feel like that.” The flush of anger lit her cheeks. “If you must use me, my lord, that’s fine, but don’t think you can deny what I can see with my own eyes—what anyone could see who looked closely enough!”
    He jerked his head away, quaking with fury and confusion—anyone? Anyone could see