"C. S. Friedman - Coldfire 3 - Crown of Shadows" - читать интересную книгу автора (Friedman C. S)

C S Friedman - Coldfire 3 - Crown of Shadows

Proloque

There was lipstick on his cheek. He could feel it when the wind brushed by, a spot of waxy moisture on
his cold-parched skin. Red, he thought. Crimson. He recalled it vaguely, distantly, in the same way he
remembered its wearer. Lips. Breasts. Thighs. Parts of a body, divorced from the whole. Flesh without a
soul. He tried to remember her name and found that he couldn't. Was that his fault or hers? What kind of
woman would cast her net for the heir of Merentha, when the very name of his family had become an
epithet for disaster?

Ahead of him the castle loomed, cold stone arches framing the night in moonlit numarble. Once there
would have been lamps in the windows, a crackling fire in the great hearth, the smell of mulled cider
seeping out into the courtyard. Once there would have been servants aplenty, running up to greet him as
he made his wee-hour approach to the great estate. Once Samiel himself might have stood in the
doorway, scowling at his younger brother as he dismounted, prepared to lecture him until dawn on
matters of propriety. Or Imelia might have been waiting, equally concerned but gentler in her castigation.
Or Betrise, broad-shouldered and belligerent.

Not any more. Not ever again.

All gone.

He dismounted-or tried to-but he was drunk enough that he stumbled as he struck the ground, and he
barely kept himself from getting trampled as he disentangled his booted foot from the stirrup. He leaned
against the animal for a moment, breathing heavily.

This was always the worst time, these first few minutes when he came home and and it hit him how
absolutely alone he was. While he was in town he could pretend that nothing was wrong-wining and
dining and womanizing with a vengeance, forcing his flesh into that accustomed mode as if somehow the
spirit could be forced to follow suit-but when he came to the castle gate all his illusions dissolved like
smoke, and he was left with nothing. Absolutely nothing. The emptiness inside him was so vast that no
woman's caress could begin to fill it, the memories so horrible that no amount of alcohol could ever dull
their impact.

He managed to get the horse stripped of its saddle and set it free to roam. He knew he should do more
for it, but that duty-like everything else-was too much for him now. There were hay and water in the
stables, and the horse knew how to get to both. The great wall that had been erected around the estate
during the war of 846 was now crumbling, but it would still serve as a pasture fence. That was enough. It
would have to be enough. He lacked the strength-and the will-to do any more.

Why was I left alive? he despaired. It wasn't the first time he had asked that question. Samiel could have
carried on. Samiel would have mourned and raged... and then he would have picked up the pieces of his
life and carried on, somehow. Building new memories. Learning to forget. They'd had such strength in
them, all of his family... all except Andrys. The playboy. The gambler. The black sheep of the family.
Why had he alone been spared? Why was it that on that terrible night when his family had been
slaughtered, he alone had been allowed to survive?

You know why, an inner voice chided. You don't want to understand it, but you do.