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Kushiel's Mercy

Kushiel's Mercy

Titel: Kushiel's Mercy Kostenlos Bücher Online Lesen
Autoren: Jacqueline Carey
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and a wizened face, coarse silver hair. One could see at once where the nickname had come from. His brown eyes were round and luminous, ringed by wrinkles. Wrinkles bracketed his wide mouth. Ugly, yes. Also very difficult to read. He regarded me without speaking.
    I bowed to him. “Well met, my lord. Thank you for your hospitality.”
    “Cadmar of Landras,” Ptolemy Solon said mildly. “Do you know, that had me stumped for the better part of an hour.” He tapped his skull. “And I never forget anything. Landras.
    It’s where you grew up, yes?”
    “Yes,” I said.
    “Well.” The round eyes blinked. “Well met, Prince Imriel de la Courcel.”
    I fought the urge to glance around. “Thank you, my lord.”
    “You may call me Solon.” He gave a quick smile. “She’s not here, if that’s what you’re wondering.”
    I relaxed a little. “It is.”
    “She’s here, of course. On Cythera.” Solon poured wine from a ewer into two cups. “But she maintains her own villa. I thought it best if we spoke first in private. You did say you’d come to petition me, and I’m quite interested in taking the measure of a young man callous enough to betray his mother unto her death, yet with the incredible temerity to beg her aid when his plans went awry.” He beckoned. “Come, sit and take a glass of wine with me.”
    I accepted, taking a seat at the table beneath the window. He sat opposite me. “Are you aware of her crimes?”
    “Oh, yes.” He took a sip of wine. “Still.”
    I gazed out the window. Ships bobbed in the harbor, the sun-drenched water making it seem as though they floated on a lake of fire. “What would you have me say?” I asked.
    “Yes. I accepted a charge to bring my mother to justice. Thousands of people died because Melisande Shahrizai committed high treason. She was condemned to death before I was even born. I can’t go anywhere in the realm without someone calling me traitor-spawn, without someone telling me how a loved one died for my mother’s sins. I can’t wed the woman I love.” I looked back at Solon. “And yes, my plans went awry.
    And now, quite frankly, I’m desperate.”
    He sipped his wine. “At least you’re honest.”
    “Did you send Sunjata?” I asked.
    “Not exactly.” The light of the setting sun glimmered in his round eyes. “He’s your mother’s doing.”
    “Did you forge a silver needle and lave it in the sweat of a madman’s brow and the slime of a toad?” I asked wryly.
    The sunlight in his eyes flared. “Did it work?”
    I showed him the healed scars around my wrists. “I had to be tied to my bed.”
    Solon examined the scars. “Interesting,” he mused. He patted my hand. “I’m sorry about that. It was the only way I could think of. And to be perfectly honest, I wasn’t sure it would work. The needle or the madness,” he added. “You’ll have to tell me what it was like.”
    “Horrible,” I said briefly. “Will you aid me if I do?”
    The sun’s bottom rim dipped below the horizon, its light shifting from gold to orange. “I haven’t decided,” Solon said in a candid tone. “It depends on you and what you offer. It depends on your mother and what she wishes. It depends on the axes of power and knowledge involved in the situation.”
    “The Unseen Guild?” I asked.
    He pursed his lips. “No, no, no. I’ve naught to do with them .” He waved a dismissive hand. “Oh, I know all about it, of course. My kinsman Ptolemy Dikaios made me the offer long ago. I accepted the training, but I refused to swear allegiance when it was over.
    Much like yourself, yes?”
    “Not exactly,” I said.
    Solon shrugged. “Knowledge is power. And yet power corrupts. Not all who wield it, but most. Still, I had a hunger for knowledge. And so I decided long ago that I would seek it out. That I would gather and amass it, and assign myself the greatest challenge of all: to wield it seldom or never in the service of my own desires.”
    I raised my brows. “That, my lord, is passing odd.”
    “Do you think so?” He blinked. “And yet consider your mother. She amassed great knowledge. She used it as a tool to further her own goals. She plunged a nation into war.
    She tore her own family apart. In the end she lost everything.”
    Those weren’t exactly the words of a man besotted. I frowned, unsure what to make of Ptolemy Solon. The sun sank lower beneath the horizon. A young woman in loose, flowing robes came with a taper to kindle the

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