Free The Weavers of Saramyr by Chris Wooding

?’
    She tore free from his grip, and he let her. He knew where the power lay in this relationship. She was the Blood Empress, ruler by bloodline. He was Emperor only by marriage; a marriage that could be annulled if Anais wished it.
    ‘Welcome back, Durun,’ she replied sarcastically, glowering at him. ‘How was your hunt?’
    ‘What has happened while I’ve been gone?’ he cried. ‘The things I hear… our child… what have you done?’
    ‘Lucia is special , Durun. As you might know, if you had seen her more than once a year. Do not claim that she is our child: you have taken no hand in her parenting.’
    ‘So it’s true? She’s an Aberrant?’ Durun roared.

    ‘No!’ Anais snapped, at the same time that Vyrrch said ‘Yes.’
    Durun gazed in astonishment at his wife, and she, unflinching, gazed back. A taut silence fell.
    She knew how he would react. The Emperor was nothing if not predictable. Most days she despised him, with his tight black attire and his long, lustrous black hair that fell straight to either side of his face. She hated his proud bearing and his hawk nose, his knife-thin face and his dark eyes. The marriage had been purely political, arranged by her parents before their passing; but while it had gained her Blood Batik as staunch and useful allies, she had paid for it by suffering this indolent braggart as a husband. Though he did have his moments, this was not one of them.
    ‘You gave birth to an Aberrant?’ he whispered.
    ‘You fathered one,’ she countered.
    A momentary spasm of pain crossed his face.
    ‘Do you know what this means? Do you know what you’ve
    done?‘
    ‘Do you know what the alternative was?’ she replied. ‘To kill my only child, and let Blood Erinima die out? Never!’
    ‘Better that you had,’ he hissed.
    There was a chime outside the door then, forestalling her retort.
    ‘Another messenger awaits you,’ Vyrrch said in his throaty
    gurgle.
    Flashing a final hot look at her husband, Anais pulled open the door and strode past the servant before he had time to tell her what she already knew. Durun stormed away to his chambers. For that, Anais was thankful. She still had no idea how she would handle the anger of the high families, but she knew she would do it better without Durun at her side.
    The chambers of Weave-lord Vyrrch were a monument to degradation. They were dingy and dark, hot and wet as a swamp in the heat of early summer. The high shutters - sealed closed when they should have been open to admit the breeze - were draped in layers of coloured materials and tapestries. The vast, plush bed had collapsed and settled at an angle, its sheets soiled and stained. In the centre of the room was an octagonal bathing pool. Its waters were murky, scattered with floating bits of debris and faeces. At the bottom, staring sightlessly upward, was a naked boy.
    Everywhere there was evidence of the Weave-lord’s terrible appetites when in his post-Weaving rages. All manner of food was strewn about in varying states of decay. Fine silks were ripped and torn. Blood stained the tiled floor here and there. A scourge lay beneath the broken bed. A corpse lay in the bed, several weeks old, its sex and age mercifully unidentifiable now. A vast hookah smoked unattended amid a marsh of spilled wine and wet clothes.
    And in the centre, his white, withered body cloaked in rags, the Weave-lord sat cross-legged, wearing his Mask.
    The True Mask of the Weave-lord Vyrrch was an old, old thing. Its lineage went all the way back to Frusric, one of the greatest Edgefathers that had ever lived. Frusric had formed it from bronze, beaten thin so it would be light enough to wear. It was a masterpiece: the face of some long-forgotten god, his expression at once demented and horribly, malevolently sane, his brows heavy over eyes like dark pits. The face appeared to be crying out in despair, or
    shrieking in hate, or calling in anger, depending on what angle the light struck it.
    Frusric had