"Janrae Frank - Journey of Sacred King 1 - My Sister's Keeper" - читать интересную книгу автора (Frank Janrae)

PROLOGUE

Margrenan Lahktormi brye Rowan, called Margren, younger daughter of the
Mar'ajan of Rowanslea, stirred uneasily in her sleep wrapped in coverlets of crimson
silk in the depths of her curtained bed. She had slept late into the morning without
resting, troubled by a dream that wound again and again through her sleep like an
unending echo. Several times in the night she had risen to pace about the room,
trying various ways to be freed of it before trying again in vain for true rest. Now a
shaft of sunlight lanced between the crimson draperies to graze her dark-skinned
oval face, the heavy curling masses of her black hair that fanned across her pillows,
and laid a golden glimmering on the long, thick lashes of her large eyes.

She dreamed of her sister again. Margren teetered on the edges of a yawning abyss
built of loneliness gaping at her feet like the hungry maw of some incomprehensible
demonic beast, waiting to swallow her whole, to crush her fragile security in its teeth
and suffocate her feelings of acceptance within the ranks of the Sharani nobility as it
sucked her down its throat. She could feel the cold stone beneath her feet, see its
gray-black outline, but she knew what it was тАУ it existed both within her and without
her, and it mattered not at all whether her body or her psyche fell into it. The result
would be the same. She felt abandoned, unwanted, alone, and very lost.

"Step in. Step in," Her sister's voice at her elbow coaxed her toward it. "It's where
you belong, isn't it? No one wants you, Margren. No one at all."

Margren turned to protest, her eyes met the dark gray, confident eyes of her sister,
and she winced away, causing her foot to miss its step. She fell screaming, "No!"
only to wake with a start in her bed, clutching the silken sheets tightly enough for the
blood to retreat from her knuckles.

She lay shaking for a long time. Margren used to try and tell people why and how
her sister hurt her so, but no one seemed to care. Then, when she would get upset
and start crying, they would write her off as overly emotional and tell her to not be
so sensitive. She hated that. It put her on the defensive. There was a difference
between having passionate feelings and being excessively hysterical. The former was
strength, while the latter was weakness. But she had never been able to convince
anyone that she was the former. The nobles and retainers at her ma'aram's court kept
telling her that she got carried away and did not really see clearly. One day she would
fix them all and then they would wish that they had seen clearly!

Her big bed was wedged tightly into a corner, one side and the head pressed solidly
against the stone walls, trapping the heavy curtains on those sides. It felt secure and
sheltered, like a stolid soldier who could not be moved. The heavy, hard-rock maple
bed had required six people to get it into her room.
 Magical energies prickled at the edges of Margren's awareness, slowly and
insistently drawing her attention from the grip of her dream. She rolled over, pushing
herself up on her elbows to gaze expectantly at the head of her bed. When the bed
had been placed there, there had been nothing but a solid wall at the head. Margren's
lover had changed that. He was the most powerful mage in the Sharani Empire,
though no one even knew he was in the realm. The curtains parted as two slender,
long-fingered hands slipped through, pushing them further and further apart,