"Kate Elliott - Jaran 4 - The Law of Becoming" - читать интересную книгу автора (Elliott Kate)

THE LAW OF BECOMING
The Fourth Novel of the Jaran

KATE ELLIOTT

"In this world below the dome of heaven, nothing that is or does can be eternal, for the law of the
harvest is the law of becoming. All that is sown must be reaped, and all that is reaped must be sown
again back into the world from which it sprang. Thus every change becomes another turn in the great
wheel of years."

тАФfrom The Revelation of Elia



PROLOGUE
1
The Plains
He woke before dawn and snuck away from the tents to watch the sun rise, both of them
solitaryтАФhe and the sun. He had done so every morning since his mother died. On cloudy days only
the light changed, paling into day. When it rained, the night leached away reluctantly, spilling into the
soil. In the deep winter blizzards snow settled like a blanket over everything. But on other mornings,
clean, sharp mornings like this one, the sun rose like a splintering blow, sundering day from night all at
once and with the promise of brilliance to come. The promise was for him. At least, that was how he
thought of it; he lived here in night, but someday that would change. It had to.

"Vasha! Come here at once!"

Vassily turned away from the east and the light and trudged back into camp. Mother Kireyevsky
cuffed him on the ear. "Have you milked Tatyana's goats yet?" she demanded. "Uncle Yakalev needs
your help this instant! Lazy boy! You're a disgrace!"

A chill edged the morning, but it was no worse than the looks he got from old Tatyana and her son
when he caught up with the flock. They spoke not one word to him, not even to greet him. He settled
down to milk the goats. When he had finished, he slung four heavy flasks of warm milk over his
shoulders and carried them back in toward camp. Passing the herd of glariss yearlings, he made the
mistake of looking straight at the Vysotsky cousins where they stood watching over the herd.

"Watch your eyes, pest!" shouted the elder, who was only three years older than Vasha himself.

"Bastard!" The younger casually picked up a rock and threw it at Vasha, and he ducked away, but
not in time. The rock stung his cheek. The Vysotsky cousins jeered and laughed. "Thought you were
better than us, didn't you?" they called, the familiar refrain. "Now you're the lowest one of all."

The fire flared within his heart, but Vasha hunkered down and walked on, fighting it back. It did no
good to scrap with them. He had learned that quickly enough: His punishment from Mother
Kireyevsky would be severe and swift. Tears of shame burned in his eyes, shame that they all
despised him, shame that he had to act like any common servant, shame that he had never made any
friends before, when his mother still lived. She had closed him off from everyone else. She had
wrapped herself around him, and she had told him over and over again that he was special, that it was
the others who were less than he was. It wasn't fair that she had lied to him.