"Rawn, Melanie - Dragon Star 03 - Skybowl" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dragon Stories)

SKYBOWL
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man on a gray stallion, and then a word she didn't understand. "Brenac."
The rider leaned down, peering at Chayla. She wanted to spit in his face when he began to laugh.
"Princess?" he mocked, and the others of his party chortled in response. A gesture brought forward another rider, leading a dainty mare. "Kir'reia!" he announced.
The cloaked figure astride the mare looked up dully. The child in her arms stirred. Chayla nearly strangled trying not to gasp her recognition.
But Meiglan had seen her in the windblown torchlight. Her eyes were black wells of terror. "Chayla?" she breathed. "Oh, GoddessЧnoЧ"
"Chayla?"
This time when he stared at her, it was with narrowed eyes. He repeated her name, then those of her father and grandfather.
"Faradhi!" the mounted leader growled, and spat. All the rest of them did the same. "No princess!" He flung an arm toward Meiglan, who flinched, then struck his own chest in pride of ownership. "Kir'reia tir!"
There ensued a discussion Chayla didn't even try to follow. Meiglan's cloak had shifted with her movement; one sight of Rislyn's face told Chayla that the little girl was ill.
"Shut up, all of you!" she snapped, starting toward Meiglan's horse. "They need my help, I'm a physicianЧ"
He closed his fingers around her shoulder tightly enough to break bones. "No princess!" he growled accusingly.
The newcomers all laughed. Their leader said something else, and they rode away. Chayla struggled, hearing Meiglan cry out her name. Then her voice was lost in the sound of galloping hoofbeats and laughter on the night wind.
Chayla was dragged back up to the cave. "No! Turn me loose! What are they going to do with her? Where are they taking her? You're nothing but cowards, all of you, preying on women and childrenЧ"
He flung her down before the fire and loomed over her. "No princess," he said once more.
"No! I'm not a princess, damn you! But my father is the Battle Commander of the Desert and my kinsman is the High Prince, and they'll kill you!"
The words were brave and ridiculous, and she knew them
for what they were: the sound of her own voice to fling against sudden fear.
He paced the short distance to the rear wall and spun around, thrusting out an accusing finger. "Diarmadhi?"
Her answer was immediate and vehement. "Certainly not!"
Incredibly, he looked disappointed. She wanted to slice out her own tongue. She should have claimed to be a sorcerer. They shouted the word in battle, they were allied with the Merida, everyone said they were on the side of the diarmadh'im even though they worked no spells. She could have used her Sunrunner gifts, done something else they would consider magicalЧ
Except that she knew nothing beyond how to call a tiny fingerflame. "Light to see by, that's all I need," she'd told her mother. "The rest can wait until I can be a Sunrunner as well as a physician. I don't have time right now."
Oh, Goddess, why had she never found the time?
He was pacing again. Short, sharp steps, boot heels digging into the rocky floor. His finger suddenly stabbed into her face. She flinched back.
"Faradh 'reia!"
"No! I'm not a princess! And I'm notfaradhi, either! Do you see any rings, idiot?" She held up both hands, infuriated to see them tremble. Clenching her fingers, she repeated, "I am not a Sunrunner!" And felt, stupidly enough, that in denying what she was, she had betrayed her parents and her heritage and even her Uncle Andry.
He spat on the ground. Just when she thought he would stalk out in disgust, he stopped, firelight seeping wickedly into smiling black eyes.
Terror, lurking for four days at the edges of her soul, found her then, seized her by the heart and mind and claimed her for its own.
"No princess ... no diarmadhi ... no faradh 'reia," he murmured, and his fingertips stroked a dirty path down her cheek.
It was real now. All of it. Hideous and unrelenting and real.
Sioned found Pol in his bedchamber. He had cramped his long body into a window embrasure, knees to chin, hair glinting by feeble candleglow.
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Melanie Rawn
SKYBOWL
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"You look like seven kinds of Hell," she told him. "No," he muttered. "Only three." "Meiglan, Rislyn, and Chayla," she supplied. "I would have thought there'd be four." He winced. She hesitated, then said, "Waiting for the clouds to clear,
I take it."
"They haven't. Not where it was important to look."
She didn't order him to bed. Sleep wasn't something anyone was familiar with these days. Standing beside him, she rested a hand on his shoulder and felt him shy as if touch hurt.
"Kazander will find Chayla tomorrow night," she said quietly, and when his head jerked up in surprise, told him what she and Andry had done.
Hope blazed in his face. "Then MeiglanЧ"
"Perhaps. I came to look through these rooms again. Did she leave anything behind that we can use?"
He searched the chamber with his eyes. "No. Nothing. I would have noticed it by now. There's nothing left of her here...." Resting his forehead against his drawn-up knees, a shuddering breath sighed out of him. "I should haveЧ"
"No, you shouldn't," she interrupted. "They took her for a reason. If it's to lure you out of Feruche to a battle you'd lose along with your life, then they'll be disappointed. Meiglan and Rislyn won't be harmed, Pol. Didn't you hear what Alasen said? That Miyon was adamant about it."
"Miyon is dead. What happens when they're taken to the High Warlord? I've got to do something, Mother, I can't just sit here andЧGoddess, what are they doing to my wife, my daughterЧ"
"Stop it," she commanded, fingers clawing into his shoulder. "Nothing will happen to them. It's you they want. You've said it yourself, Azhrei,"
"But you can't risk meЧand Meiglan and Rislyn are expendable!" He lurched to his feet, nearly knocking her down. "You never cared about Meggie, never wanted me to Choose herЧ"
Sioned remained silent as the accusations went on. It was not her he railed against; it was himself, and the new emotions that made mockery of that Choice. Meiglan on one side, Sionell on the other, and Pol snared between, paralyzed by guilt. Sioned thanked the Goddess he was paralyzed. Tak-
ing action now, when he could not think and all his emotions were dangerous, would be fatal.