"Briggs, Patricia - Sianim 2 - Steal the Dragon.text" - читать интересную книгу автора (Briggs Patricia)

had the courage to do it.

Safe in the stables of Sianim, Rialla let her hand rub the scar on her cheek. If she
agreed to return to Reth, she would have to let them tattoo her again, over the scar.
The scar would brand her as an escaped slave; as such she would be watched even
closer than most. Something could go wrong and she would be forced to remain a
slave; a second escape would be virtually impossible.

The whisper of sound alerted her that she was no longer alone. She wiped her
cheeks, but knew it would be obvious she'd been crying. Drawing a deep breath she
turned to see who had joined her.

The man who stood in the dim light of the stable was of average height. He had
dark hair, darker eyes and skin that was tanned by many days out in the sun. His
build was slight, but he moved with the trained grace of a warrior.

Rialla raised her chin in an unconscious gesture of defiance that was not lost on
the man watching her. "Laeth."

He nodded a greeting and leaned against a stall partition across from the bench
where she sat, leaving the width of the aisle between them.

It was virtually unheard of for a Darranian lord to train at Sianim. Though the


schools of warcraft at Sianim were famous, Darranians kept to themselves. When
Laeth had come to Sianim for training two years ago, Rialla had avoided him until
they were assigned the same instructor for hand-to-hand combat.

The instructor didn't speak Darranian, and Laeth only knew what little of the
Common tongue he'd picked up since he came. Darranians, being an insular people,
had little use for learning languages other than their own.

She watched him struggle for several days before moving next to him and
interpreting. It had been a combination of the way that he'd persisted, laughing at
himself and trying again, and her refusal to let herself be manipulated into hating all
Darranians for what a few had done that made her help him.

He had turned to her, ignoring the betraying scar on her cheek, and thanked her
in a quiet voice. The friendship that followed was a surprise to Rialla and, she
thought, to him also. She taught him Common in the evenings and he told her a little
about himself.

The younger son of a powerful Darranian lord, he'd amused himself scandalizing
his family for most of his life. Then he'd discovered a shy little maid called Marri,
whom he'd met at a party given at a local estate. Her family hadn't approved of her
marriage to a black sheep, even of so exalted a family, so he'd settled down and
persuaded his father to give him a small manor that he worked for a year, preparing
it for his intended bride. When he received an invitation to his older brother
Karsten's wedding, he decided that the time had come to inform his family that he'd