"Cecilia Dart-Thornton - The Bitterbynde 03 - The Battle of Evernight" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dart-Thornton Cecilia)

leaf was a perfect spear-blade chipped from lucent emerald, fresh from the bud. As yet the new foliage
was unbitten by insect, unparched by wind, untorn by rain.
The travelers walked through a glade striped with slender silver-paper poles marked at spaced
intervals with darker notches that accentuated the clean smooth paleness of the bark. The tops of the
poles were lost overhead in a yellow-stippled haze of tenderest green.
The damsel called Tahquil twisted the golden leaf-circle on her finger. Her thoughts fled to he who
had bestowed it upon her. I miss thee. I have come full circle. Here I am once more. And thee, my
love, shall I ever see thee again?
 The damsel, Tahquil. Her insides ached. Yearning chewed at them.
Thus she thought: I am a thousand and seventeen and a half years old. I am Ashalind na
Pendran, Lady of the Circle. I come from a time before the shang, before Windships and sildron.
The kingdom of my birth has crumbled to nothing. One of the most powerful Fa├кran in Aia
pursues meтАФbut why? Is it simply because I committed the crime of eavesdropping and survived
his vengeance, or does he guess I have found a way back to the Realm? Is he after my life or my
knowledge? And all the while the other powerful Fa├кran, his royal brother, sleeps forever
amongst a great company of knights beneath some unmarked hill.
One Gate to Faerie remains passable: the Gate of Oblivion's Kiss. Only I may enter it, only I
might recognize it, if I could recall. But the past has returned imperfectly to me. The most
important recollection of all, that of the Gate's location, is still hidden in oblivion's mistsтАФmayhap
'tis hidden forever. Indeed, some other events surrounding my time in the Gate-passage lack
clarity.
If I could return to the Fair Realm with the Password "elindor," the Keys could be released
from the Green Casket. The Gates might be opened once more. The Fa├кran would be able to send
a discreet messenger to where their High King liesтАФfor surely they could guess where he would
be, or find him by means of gramaryeтАФto tell him to return in all haste and secrecy to the Realm.
Yet, if the Raven Prince discovers that the Gates are open and enters the Fair Realm before his
brother, he might use his second boon to close them again and condemn the High King to
continuing, everlasting exile.
Back and forth shuttle my thoughts, my confusion. This is like playing a game of
Kings-and-Queens: if this, then thus, but if that, then the other.
Nonetheless, many matters are now clarified. Now I understand truly who it is that hunts at
my heelsтАФit is not the Antlered One, after all. Huon is only one of Morragan's minions. Huon's
powers are nought by comparison with his master's. Now I understand whose henchman noticed
my Talith hair in the marketplace of Gilvaris Tarv, and who lost track of me after the attack on
the road-caravan, and who found me again when Dianella and Sargoth betrayed me. I understand
who it was that ordered the Wild Hunt to assail Isse Tower, who sent the Three Crows of War
through the Rip of Tamhania. I know who pursues me with destruction wherever I may goтАФthe
Raven Lord, Morragan, Fithiach of Carnconnor, Crown Prince of Faerie.
Somberly, as she walked through the birch woods, the traveler with the dark-dyed hair and the
festoons of thyme dwelled again on the moment she had first set eyes on him in the halls of Carnconnor
under Hob's Hill.
With eyes as gray as the cold southern seas, he was the most grave and comely of all the
present company. His hair tumbled down in waves to his elbows, the blue-black shade of a raven's
wing . . . he regarded her, but said naught.
I dismiss that personage from my contemplation, she said to herself. He brings sorrow. The
Fa├кran! I have met with them, spoken with them! Sorrow they bring to mortals but delight also,
and they are so joyous and goodly to behold as I would not have believed possible. Again she
caressed the golden ring on her finger, smiling sadly, her eyes misted with reflections. Indeed, had I not
seen with my own eyes Thorn wielding cold iron in his very hand, I would have said he must be of
Fa├кran blood. Beloved heart-breaker! I am fervently glad he is no Fa├кranтАФbut I must banish