"Edghill,.Rosemary.-.Empty.Crown.Trilogy" - читать интересную книгу автора (Edghill Rosemary)

Melior followed.

He had long since lost track of how long he had sought the Sword, for
the time changed with each Borderland he crossed, but he thought it had
been long indeed. But never yet, in all his years of war and
wandering, had Rohannan Melior of the House of the Silver Silences been
so caught between joy and despair.

Despair, because the Sword was lost to him again. For a brief moment
he had held it in his hands, and even though it had been spellbound to
carry him into this city of dreadful night, Melior had found and passed
many Gates, and with the Sword's aid he could win free of even the Last
World itself.

But through foolishness, through inattention, through the cursed luck
that had dogged every step of his quest, the Sword was ravished away,
stolen by a brace of common footpads.

If that were all, despair would be his only companion. But there was
Ruth.

He had never known her name until this moment, but it seemed to him
that he had always known her face. It had been his companion on the
blood-soaked battlefields of his homeland; a promise that he had once
been too young to understand. Her image had burned in his heart like
the brief bright lives of humans, only awaiting her presence to kindle
itself past all extinction.

But to find her here, in this world, human and mortal and with no idea
of the greater worlds that held her own in nested embrace It was
difficult at times, Melior reflected, to know when you were well off.

Was it better to search for his heart's-ease forever, or to find her
like this?

And the worst of it was, she did not know him.

The lobby of the building that held Ruth and Naomi's shared apartment
was one of those typical New York glass air locks, requiring for its
navigation two different keys and the agility required to ski through a
revolving door. Melior acted as if he'd never seen one before, which
made things difficult. He watched Ruth's every movement with a grave
courtesy, as though he expected to be quizzed on them later.

The building's elevator alternated between dysfunctional and homicidal
, and the apartment was only on the seventh floor. Ruth opted for
the stairs. Melior followed her, limping slightly, the authentic signs
of a recent beating turning flushed and red.