Wind Over Bone: The Estralony Cycle #2 (Young Adult Fantasy Romance) Read Online Free Page A

vaults and deep shadows. Chandeliers seemed to float through the thick air, and great tripod braziers cast a wavering glow over the walls. Smoke obscured the high ceiling. People obscured everything else.
    But she couldn’t see any of them very well, and seized with curiosity, she stepped through the door. She stood mesmerized a moment. And then her heart went cold, and she crept behind a curtain into a small side chamber.
    The air was cooler in here; there was a door open, looking into a garden. Sarid cracked the curtain she’d come through and stared in cynical awe at the dresses––mountains of silk and satin, squeezing and thumping, and filling in all the spare space. And the hair. Elaborately braided, crowned with tall, jeweled headdresses so the ladies looked like tropical birds. Sarid couldn’t take her eyes off them. There was no sign of Rischa.
    But a man was approaching her curtain. He was small, with a red satin short coat, yellow knickers, and spindly legs. He made absurd swimming motions with his arms to keep his two wine glasses from spilling, and hummed along with the music, failing spectacularly to stay in tune. He threw aside the velvet––Sarid wondered whether it would be better to slip through and face the hundreds of dancers or stay and face the man.
    She stayed. The man blinked two or three times. “Yah!” He spread his arms. “It’s little Gurd from the kitchens. Dancing behind the curtains. You’re Gurd, ain’t you?” Sarid nodded dumbly. “Thought so. Little Gurd smells like sausage and you smell like sausage. Can’t see well in here––’s all smoky.” He waved his hand in front of his face, moved closer. His breath smelled like brandy and nutmeg.
    His armpits were wet, but he didn’t bother to hide them––he’d drunk well past the state of insecurity. He spread his arms again. “Gurd! Have a dance with me. I’m a pretty partner, ain’t I?” She smiled and shook her head. “Anxious over your locked door? You’re wasting your time. I go in for men. Not that you ain’t lovely as a lotus. Come! Dance with Yoffin. We’ll stay behind the curtain. You’ll be the prettiest girl in the room.”
    “I don’t dance, sir.” She stepped away from his brandy-breath. “I’ve never learned.”
    He laughed so hard he started coughing and had to put his two wine glasses on a windowsill. “You don’t learn to dance. You just dance. Come, like this––” He grabbed her hands and jerked her along to the music. “Taddle, tit, tit––like this”––he nodded at his shiny red pumps––“tit, tit, no, no, Gurd, tit tit––” She tried to follow, but the sight of the pumps skipping around sent her into bouts of laughter. “You are not nice, Gurd. My kidneys are pricking against my sides, and I am too ugly for you.”
    “ Sit, then, Ugly.” Another man had quietly joined them, and was sitting on the windowsill, drinking from one of Yoffin’s glasses. “Let me have a dance with the kitchen girl.” His long legs were stretched out before him.
    “ Kind of you, Master.” Yoffin blew heavily through his nose. “Take and wear her down to a thin line. What she deserves, laughing at me, the bad monkey.”
    “ A thin line.” The man blotted his mouth with a sleeve; it made him look neat, rather than boorish. “She is already rather thin, I think, Yoffin. But I shall do my best.” Silently, not looking at her but a little above her, he took one of her hands in his own. He drew her in, putting her other hand on his shoulder. He was close, much closer than Yoffin had been, and Sarid sweated under her clothes.
    She gave Yoffin a pleading glance. He was leaning against the wall, still breathing heavily. “Go on, Gurd,” he said. “The night belongs to the spry and handsome. No place for a sweaty rag like me.”
    Sarid’s new partner’s hands were dry and cold; he smelled like winter. Though his posture was superb he somehow managed to keep his head bowed and in shadow,