"Mercedes Lackey - Last Herald Mage 3 - Magic's Price" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lackey Mercedes)

now. I don't know how you do it, Father - how you manage to be so strong for all of us. I'll go
back in now, but if you need me for anything - :
He shook his head, and she smiled weakly, then turned and threaded her way across the
overgrown flowerbeds, taking the most direct route back, the route he had avoided.
Soaking her shoes. And not caring in the least.
 :Like father, like daughter,: Yfandes snorted.
:Shut up, horse,: Van retorted absently.
His own thoughts followed his daughter. It's a life-bonding, the thing between her and Trev.
I'm positive. The way she's always aware of him, and Trev of her... in a way that's not a bad thing.
She's going to need all the emotional help she can get when Randi dies, and she surely won't get it
from Shavri. Shavri is going to be in too much pain herself to help Jisa - assuming Shavri lives a
candlemark beyond Randi. . . .
But the problems . . . gods above and below! Is she old enough to understand what Trev is
going to have to do - that the good of Valdemar may - will - take precedence over her happiness?
How can any fifteen-year-old understand that? Especially with her heart and soul so bound up
with his?
But-she was old enough to understand about me. . . .
How well Vanyel remembered. . . .
. . . .the provisions of the exclusion to be as follows. . . .
"Uncle Van?"
Vanyel had looked up from the proposed new treaty with Hardorn. He had the odd feeling that
there was something hidden in the numerous clauses and subclauses, something that could cause a lot of
trouble for Valdemar. He wasn't the only one - the Seneschal was uneasy, and so were any Heralds with
the Gift of ForeSight that so much as entered the same room with it.
So he'd been burning candles long into the night, searching for the catch, trying to ferret out the
problem and amend it before premonition became reality.
He'd taken the infernal thing back to his own room where he could study it in peace. It was past
the hour when even the most pleasure-loving courtier had sought his or her bed; it was long past the hour
when Jisa should have been in hers. Yet there she stood, wrapped in a robe three sizes too big for her,
half-in, half-out of his doorway.
"Jisa?" he'd said, blinking at her, as he tried to pull his thoughts out of the maze of "whereases"
and "party of the first parts." "Jisa, what are you doing still awake?"
"It's Papa," she'd said simply. She moved out of the doorway and into the light. Her eyes were
dark-circled and red-rimmed. "I can't do anything, but I can't sleep, either."
He'd held out his arms to her, and she'd come to him, drooping into his embrace like an
exhausted bird into its nest.
:Uncle Van-: She'd Mindtouched him immediately, and he could sense thoughts seething behind
the ones she Sent. :Uncle Van, it's not just Papa. I have a question. And I don't know if you're
going to like it or not, but I have to ask you, because - because I need to know the answer. :
He'd smoothed her hair back off her forehead. :I've never lied to you, and I've never put you
off, sweetling,: he'd replied. :Even when you asked uncomfortable questions. Go ahead.:
She took a deep breath and shook off his hands. :Papa isn't my real father, is he? You are.:
He'd had less of a shock from mage-lightning. And he'd answered without thinking. :I-yes-but -:
She'd thrown her arms around his neck and clung to him, not saying anything, simply radiating
relief.
Relief - and an odd, subdued joy.
He blinked again, and touched her mind, tentatively. :Sweetling? Do - :
:I'm glad,: she said. And let him fully into her mind. He saw her fears - that she would become
sick, as Randale had. Her puzzlement at some odd things she'd overheard her mother say - and the
strange evasions Shavri had given instead of replies. The frustration when she sensed she wasn't being