"Melanie Rawn - Dragon Prince 3 - Sunrunners Fire" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rawn Melanie)

PART ONE

Chapter One

719: Stronghold

The immense emerald caught and concentrated the fire of the setting sun into a
fierce glow alive with green-gold light. Sunrunner though High Princess Sioned
was, and skilled in the arts of the faradh'im, the other rings that would
signify her rank among them were missing from her hands. For many years she
had worn only her husband's ring, the emerald he had given her half their
lifetimes ago. But tonight she could feel the rest still on her hands, as
she'd told Lady Andrade: like scars.

There were others with her in the evening hush who wore faradhi rings. The
three circling the fingers of her sister-by-marriage, Princess Tobin, were
honorary; nonetheless they betokened considerable if informally trained power.
Tobin's eldest son Maarken and his wife Hollis each wore six rings; Riyan,
only son of Sioned's old friend Ostvel, had four. Had Sioned still worn hers,
they would have numbered sevenтАФbut she knew quite honestly that her talents
and her powers would have merited eighth and ninth rings by now. That she
chose not to claim them was indication enough of where her loyalties lay.

She lifted her head and met her husband's solemn expression. He knelt directly
across from her on a broad blue carpet flung over dry grass. A golden brazier
rested in the center of the rug. Its wide, empty dish, supported by four
carved dragon claws, was polished to a mirror's gleam. Before Sioned was a
golden pitcher and a small matching wine cup. She did not look at the latter
very long; she gazed into Rohan's face and, as always, drew strength from what
she saw there.

Rohan was flanked by Maarken and Riyan; Hollis and

Ostvel sat on Sioned's right, Tobin and her husband

Chaynal to her left. She thought of the absent others,

and the reasons why they were not here. Her son, Pol,

was back at Graypearl, safe on Prince Lleyn's island

under the watchful guardianship of another Sunrunner

and old friend, Meath. Alasen, Sioned's kinswoman and

Ostvel's young wife, was at Stronghold, but she would

have nothing to do with faradhi ways. Although she

possessed gifts in generous measure, Sunrunner workings