"Naomi Kritzer - Turning the Storm" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kritzer Naomi)

job. "I'll be back in a few hours."
"Have fun." Giovanni didn't look up from the desk.
I went out for what Giovanni called my personal victory parade, visiting each unit and
congratulating everyone who'd fought with us, including the Chirani who'd picked up tools
as improvised weapons. The Chirani were a grim lot, even more haggard and desperate
than most of the prisoners we'd freed. I was passing the granary when I heard a hesitant
voice say, "Eliana?"
The voice was familiar, and I turned. My mouth dropped open. Of all the people to find
hereтАФ"Lia."
Lia had been my roommate at the conservatory before Mira. She'd left the
conservatory a year ago, when her family announced plans to move north. Her high
cheekbones were prominent to the point of being ghoulish-looking, and her green eyes
were sunken, but even starving she was beautiful in her own strange way. Lia had always
been an odd one at the conservatoryтАФshe played lute, and had stubbornly refused to take
up an ensemble instrument, saying that she wanted to be a minstrel when she finished
her education. "Lia," I said again. "What are you doing here?"
Lia gave me a ghostlike smile. "I could ask the same of you. I think it's pretty obvious
what I'm doing hereтАФ building a bloody wall. But the Eliana I heard about was you? I
can't believe it."
I glanced around. I'd finished my parade, and my time was my ownтАФas much as it
ever was these days. "Come on, I'll get you something to eat. Do you have family here?"
Lia shook her head. "Let's go talk for a while."
I led the way down into the larder. "All these keeps are laid out the same," I said.
"This set of stairs always leads to the larder, and there's a hidden cabinet of food that the
first looters to come through always miss." I pulled out the loaves of bread and bricks of
cheese. "Don't eat too much, too fast," I warned her. "Especially not the cheese." There
was a flask of wine in the cabinet as well, and I poured us each a glass.
"So tell me," Lia said. "What have you been up to?"
"You first," I said.
"My story's not that unusual. We tried to go north; they stopped us. We tried again;
they stopped us. We tried again; they sent us here. My parents died here, as did the
sister and brother who came with us. I do have another brother and sister, with families,
but who knows what's happened to them." She pushed a lock of dark hair behind her ear
and took a sip of wine.
"Your lute?"
"Stolen." She said it quickly, but I saw a look of pain cross her face, almost worse than
when she said her parents had died. "I still have my voice, at least." She looked up. "Your
turn."
"I don't really know where to start," I said.
"That doesn't sound like the Eliana I used to go to for all the best gossip," Lia said.
"You could start by telling me about everyone else at the conservatory, if you're really
stuck. How is Bella?"
"She's dead," I said.
"Dead!" Lia set her wine down, her face white but resigned. "Bella? How?"
"It was the Fedeli ..." I put down my bread and cheese, and picked up my own wine. "I
suppose the story really starts with Mira. After you left the conservatory, I had the room
to myself for a couple of monthsтАФand then a new student arrived, a girl our age, Mira.
She said she'd come from a seminary in Cuore, but I realized almost right away that she
was lying." I felt my cheeks flush and my hands warm, just a little, at the thought of Mira.
"You remember how people would play Redentori songs, Old Way songs, back at the