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Ge His ers Not all of theh I noted which ones looked uncoh whom Scimina or another of uest, Yeine-ennu, Ge my business Say what youve come to say, and then please leave

I inclined my head Call off your plans to attack Darr

Gemd waited for a moment Or?

I shook reat deal fro the art of wielding absolute power We do not give ultiive orders, and those are obeyed

Thefrom fury to incredulity Two kept their faces blank: the richly dressed man at Gemds side and Gemd himself I could see calculation in their eyes

You dont have absolute power, said the n that he was uncertain You havent even been named heir

True, I said Only the Lord Dekarta holds total power over the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms Whether they thrive Whether they falter Whether they are obliterated and forgotten Gehtened at that, not quite a frown Grandfather has this power, but he ate it to those of us in Sky who have his favor

I let them wonder whether I had earned that favor or not It probably sounded like a sign of favor that I had been sulanced at the , You must realize, Lady Yeine, that once plans have been set in motion, they can be difficult to stop We will need time to discuss your order

Of course, I said You have ten er and bigger, one of the ones I had marked for an Arameri tool He looked at me as if I were excrement on the botto this ridiculous delared at hier man stepped away fro ht to deal with such behavior fro their fur and growling Only rarely is there actual threat behind it, and a wo when the threat is real and when it is just hair and noise For now the threat was not real, but that could change

He stopped beforeat me Look at her! They probably had to call a scrivener just to confirm she came out of an Arameri cunt

Rish! Genored him and turned back to me, and abruptly the threat beca his body to put his right hand near ht side He meant to backhand e or reach for my knife

And in that sliver of time, I felt the power around me coalesce, y occurred toI held still, tense for the blow Three inches fro no one could seeand when it did, there was a high hard clacking sound, like stone striking stone

Rish drew his hand away, startled and perhaps puzzled by his failure to put me in , faceted black had appeared about the knuckles I was close enough to see the flesh around this patch blistering, beading with moisture like , but freezing; I could feel the waft of cold air from where I stood The effect was the same, however, and as the flesh withered and crisped away as if it had been charred, what appeared underneath was not raw flesh, but stone

I was surprised that Rish took so long to begin screa

All the men in the room reacted to Rishs cry One stumbled back from the table and nearly fell over a chair Two others ran over to Rish to try and help him Gemd moved to help as well, but some powerful preservative instinct rabbed Gemd by the shoulder to halt him That turned out to be wise, because the first of the rabbed Rishs wrist to see as theswiftly; nearly the whole hand was now a glittering luh shape of a fist Only the tips of Rishs fingers remained flesh, and they transforony, and the Tok grabbed Rishs fist in an effort to hold him still Almost immediately he jerked away, as if the stone had been too cold to touchand then the Tok, too, stared at his pal there