"Tamora Pierce - Circle Opens 3 - Cold Fire" - читать интересную книгу автора (Pierce Tamora)

"See, this isn't so bad," Nia said as they reached the entrance of the
boat basin. "Soon it will be as easy as breathing. Now turnтАж" She
swept Daja around until they faced the stair to the rear courtyard,
across the small basin. "Ready, left, push," Nia coaxed. Daja obeyed.
Left, right, left, right, they slowly made their way across the ice.
Servants coming and going from the house and outbuildings watched
and hid grins. Like Nia, they had spent their lives here on the
southeastern edge of the Syth. For those who could not afford horses
and sleighs in winter, ice skates were necessary. They were a quick
way around a city sprawled over various islands in waters that were
frozen solid from mid-Blood Moon to late Seed Moon.
By the time Nia turned Daja again, the older girl was starting to get
the idea. The trick was to rock as she stroked, using alternate legs to
push. If she brought her legs together, sooner or later she would stop
moving. Skates, when not in motion, had an ugly tendency to make
the wearer fall over.
Nia guided her back to the end of the boat basin, where it passed
under a street bridge to enter the canal beyond. Without stopping, she
moved Daja onto a course that circled the ice instead of halving it.
Three times they went around, Daja feeling stronger and more
confident with each turn. It was not so different from being aboard a
ship, in a cold way. She enjoyed it so much that she didn't realize that
Nia had let go of her. She skated two yards alone before she noticed.
Then she made the mistake of looking for her partner. Her knees and
ankles wobbled. She frantically tried to recapture the rhythm,
managing three strokes of the skates before her feet hit the basin's
edge. Daja went face-first into heaped snow.
She sank a foot before Nia pulled her out. Laughing, the girl
apologized. "I thought you were doing so well that you'd just keep тАУ "
Daja straightened, bobbling. Nia had gone abruptly silent. A
moment later Daja realized the servants had also stopped moving.
Everyone stared at the place where she had fallen.
Daja sighed. Her Namornese hosts had told her that she had
adjusted wonderfully to their northern winter. She had not mentioned
that her mage talents included the ability to control her body warmth
by drawing heat from other sources. As a result, her very warm body
had melted her precise shape into the snow, down to each finger on
her gloves. The snow that had iced her face when she fell was melting
down the front of her coat.
"Can Frostpine do that?" asked Nia, putting her own gloved hand
into the hand-shape Daja had burned into the snow. Daja's teacher, a
great mage dedicated to the service of the Fire gods, was the reason
they were spending the winter in Bancanor House. Nia's parents were
old friends from the time before Frostpine took his vows.
"No," Daja replied. "Even if you have the same magic as someone
else, it shows in different ways." It would require too much
explanation, or she would have added that she wouldn't have this
ability if she had not spent months with her magic intertwined with
that of three other young mages. Though Daja and her foster-siblings
had finally straightened their powers out, they still carried traces of