"Melanie Rawn - Dragon Star 3 - Skybowl" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rawn Melanie)

Lady Merisel's castle on Dorval. He'd never even considered that there might be others.
Or that they might be used by the diarmadh'im. Stoneburners.
Was the Goddess here? Was this her place? Had it once belonged to her and been corrupted?
Only one way to find out.
He stripped off his gloves and pocketed them, and let his cloak fall from his shoulders. There was
no question of removing the rest of his clothes; he wasn't suicidal and doubted that the Goddess
wanted the Lord of her Keep to freeze to death. After closing his eyes for a few moments to steady
his mind and his breathing, he gazed at the stone directly opposite him. It was larger than the
others, upright in the frozen mud like an arm reaching for the sky. He would call Fire to it, let
it cascade down to melt the ice, and then pluck a hair from his head to float on the freed
water....
But at the first glimmer of Fire, the stone itself turned to flame. Angry crimson burst head-high,
then bled in a swift circle to ignite all the rocks. Andry flinched back and bade the Fire be
gone.
It burned brighter than ever.
Within the circle, the sheet of ice reflected living Fire. Across the mirrorlike surface swirled
furious shadows
painted in red and yellow and orange. His hands shook as he tugged a single hair from his
napeтАФstartled to find it was a gray oneтАФand let it fall onto the solid, unmelting ice.
Fire, Water, the Earth of which he was made. One more thing would finish the gathering of
ElementsтАФand somehow he knew that if he did not breathe Air across the pond, the flames would burn
forever. This was a ritual that demanded completion. But for Andry, it was like being trapped in a
dream, struggling to wake, desperately aware that until it was over there would be no escape.
It was not his breath but the Storm God's that blew across the ice and flames, scattering shadows.
The pond was truly a mirror nowтАФa diarmadhi mirror, not reflecting what was before it but
revealing what was inside it.
And unlike the mirror he'd found in the Veresch, this one did not show the living. Every face he
saw was the face of someone dead.
He knew them, had seen them since childhood or at Riall'im or in Fire conjurings that showed
others how to recognize them. Halian of Meadowlord, the Parchment Prince; black-eyed Miyon of
Cunaxa; hawk-nosed Kostas of Syr. Volog and Latham of Kierst, father and son, alike in features
but not in the marks of age and rule. The brothers Edirne and Camanto of Fessenden, utterly
unalike. And the youngest, and the most regrettable death: Rihani of Ossetia.
One after another the faces of dead princes appeared and were consumed in flames, just as the
castles had been dropped and shattered.
The price of this war? The sacrifices? What might have bought their lives?
Kostas, assassinated by a Merida. Rihani, dead of wounds. Halian and Latham murdered. Volog alone
had succumbed to natural causes. Edirne had been killed in an accident. Miyon's death had been an
execution as far as Andry was concerned. He didn't know how Camanto had diedтАФhadn't even been
aware of his death, in fact, until now.
But if this was the tally of princes sacrificed to this war, where was Rohan?
Andry sat back on his heels, tearing his gaze from the empty ice-mirror to stare at the trees.
Though they formed only an arc, not a circle, around him, they were easily identified. The one
directly to his left was the Child; next to it, Youth. A flowering bush, naked now in winter,


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