"Kate Elliott - Crown of Stars 1 - King's Dragon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Elliott Kate)

"The Rose of Healing," he said. "You have burned its shape into the table. How did you do this?"
She tried to pull her hand out of his, but his grip was too strong. "I don't know. I don't know. I
didn't mean to."
He grabbed her by the shoulders, shook her. "You don't know?" If anything, he looked more
furious than when she had slapped him. "You will tell me!"
"I don't know."
He struck her backhanded. His heavy rings scored her cheek. He struck her again. He was
diving into a rare fury. "How many years have I studied to find the key to the Rose of Healing, and you
don't know! Where is your father's book? What did he teach you?"
"No," she said, while blood trickled down her cheek.
He lifted her up bodily and carried her out of the room and into his own cell. There, he dropped
her onto the bed. There she lay, staring up at him. He studied her, and all the while his left hand opened
and shut to a rhythm known only to him.
Finally he knelt on the bed beside her. He wiped the thin film of blood off her skin. His touch was
gentle.
"Liath." His voice was coaxing, persuasive. "What use is knowledge if it is not shared? Have we
not learned well together this past winter? Can we not learn more?" He kissed her cheek, where the rings
had cut it open, then her throat, then her mouth, lingering, insistent.
But the fire had woken in her, however damped down it might burn. Ever since she had drawn
the rose, a thin edge of sensation burned inside her where before she had felt nothing. Fire melts ice.
Each time he kissed her she shuddered away from him.
"No," she said softly, and braced herself for the blow.
"Liath," he sighed. He ran a hand along the curve of her body. His breathing came in unsteady
bursts, more ragged even than it had been when he was angry. "I have never treated you ill, in my bed."
"No," she said, compelled to answer with the truth.
"You could have pleasure. But you must trust me. I have seen how quickly you learn. How much
you want to learn. That you want to learn more." He laid his full weight on her. Even through their
clothing, she felt the heat of his skin, burning off, enveloping her. "You know very well, my beauty, there
is no one else you can ask. No one else you can turn to. I am the only one. There were rumors about
your Da, dear old Master Bernard, but these villagers let it alone, let him alone, because they liked him.
Because the biscop of Freelas has worse things to worry about than one stray sorcerer who sets hex
spells to keep foxes out of henhouses."
Trapped in this tiny cell, the walls so thick, the air so still, she was already walled up, lost in a
prison of Hugh's making.
"But you would not be so lucky, as young as you are, and the way you look." He stroked her
hair in that way he had, running a hand up her neck and catching the hair on the back of his hand, in his
fingers, stroking free. "This hair is too fine and too lovely, your skin stays dark through the winter, like the
folk from the southern lands, and who in these Ladyforsaken parts has seen such folk, or even believes in
them? And your eyes. As blue as the deep fire, or did you know that? I know. I have sought since I was
a boy to unlock the secrets of sorcery. There are others like me, others who struggle to learn and to
master. Somehow you were born with it in your blood. I know what you are, but I will never betray your
secret to anyone else. Do you believe me?"
Even trapped under him, knowing he would say anything to convince her to give him the book, to
tell him everything she knew, the horror of it was she did believe him. She had a sudden premonition he
had spoken those words rashly and without thinking he might be swearing himself to them.
"I believe you," she said, but the words hurt. He knew what she was. A sorcerer makes herself,
but two sorcerers must never marry. Her mother had said it once, placing a hand on Liath's brow.
Because the child of two sorcerers might inherit a wild streak of magic more dangerous than the king's
wrath. Except Liath had inherited a kind of deafness instead. Da taught her, but only so she could protect
herself by having that knowledge. "You cannot use them, for you are deaf to magic."