Free Thy Father's Shadow (Book 4.5) by Robert J. Crane Page A

then.”
    Amenon studied him without amusement. “I’ve told you this before, but it bears repeating. The wit that comes so naturally to you is familiar to me. Your grandfather made a constant jest of everything in his life, and it took him no farther than the vek’tag pens of Sovar. You would do well to remember that when next you interrupt a serious topic with your pointless levity.”
    “In fairness to him,” Terian said, without much levity at all, “anyone who worked the vek’tag pens for very long would need to have a sense of humor about them. After all, shoveling spider dung? When does that get fun?”
    Amenon did not even blink, keeping his gravely serious aura. “I suppose it would be too much to ask for you to listen to the words I speak to you.”
    “I’m listening,” Terian said. “I’m taking it all in. I’m here, ready to serve as your adjutant, if that’s what you want.” He didn’t have to force his face to turn serious. “But if you think I’m going to do it without making light of amusing situations, then I’m not sure what you expected when you summoned me here.”
    Amenon wore a wary look. “I expected you to have matured, perhaps. To be ready to assume your duties as my heir.”
    Terian gave a moment’s pause. “I’m as ready as ever I’m going to be for that.”
    Amenon studied him shrewdly— looking for a smile or laugh to mark the joke, probably . “I expect you to fulfill your unquestioned duty to the Sovereign and to the Noble House of Lepos. Do you think you can do that without exposing us to too much embarrassment and scorn from your … eccentricities?”
    “I’ll keep the drinking and whoring at levels acceptable for the nobility,” Terian deadpanned. “It’ll require me to step up my efforts in both of those areas to keep up with that old sot Mangrein or to bed as many whores as Lady Irinset does serving boys, but I’m willing to apply myself in order to properly represent our house.” He snapped to formal attention, just as he had learned in the Legion of Darkness. “I shan’t fail you in this endeavor, Father.”
    Amenon Lepos did not so much as narrow his eyes, but his hand rose faster than Terian could react. A vise grip found its way across Terian’s neck in spite of Amenon being a good ten steps away from his son and having a desk separating them. Terian dropped to his knees immediately, prying at his throat, trying to rip off the gorget that was there to protect him from attacks to his neck.
    Terian gagged as he felt the pain of his fall on both knees, the shock of the drop not nearly as heavy as the pressure on his throat. Can’t breathe …! He tried to mouth the words for the countercurse to Lockjaw, but his sublingual casting skills were mediocre at best, and he knew it even as he tried and failed the first time. It’s not fatal , he told himself. Not fatal. The crushing pressure around his windpipe was only in his mind, the logical part of him knew, and yet it felt as though a pearl as large as a troll belly had been forced down his gullet and he choked again, making the same gagging noise that he’d heard the night before in the Brutal Hole.
    “Perhaps you labor under the illusion that your wit impresses me,” Amenon said calmly. Terian had a dim vision of his father standing behind his desk, unmoved, not even watching the spectacle of his only son crawling on the floor, fighting for breath, trying to reverse the spell that had been cast upon him. It will pass. Terian tried to force the thought to calm him, but failed. It will pass it will pass it will pass—
    “It does not,” his father went on, still calm. “Skill in battle impresses me. Dutiful service impresses me.” He looked back at last, now, and Terian met the cold, disinterested gaze of his father as his own surely screamed Help me! to the man who could spare him. “A good jest is fine for a working man of Sovar, whiling away his nights drinking the mulled brews that allow him