"05 - A Pride of Princes (b)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Roberson Jennifer)

Prologue

The cavern was dense with smoke. The woman stepped
through and dutifully it followed, purling in her wake. It
gathered along the hem of her skirts like puppies on a
bitch, suckling at her feet.

She walked from shadow into glare, into the pure
clean light of godfire as it leaped from a circular rent in
the stone floor. A hole, like a wound in the earth itself,
bleeding flame.

Sparks issued forth, fell, formed a glowing necklet on
the nap of her velvet gown. But she did not flinch as they
died; the fireЧlike the sparksЧwas cold,

Beyond the flame, she saw her brother. Standing as he
stood so often, for hours on end, and days, at the rim of
the netherworld. Godfire bathed his face in its lurid
lavender glare, limning the magnificent planes of his
bones. A beautiful man, her brother; she might have
been jealous, once, but she knew she claimed more power.

He saw her. He smiled. In the light his eyes were
mirrors.

Briefly the flame died back; was sucked down, with-
drawn, like a tongue into a mouth. But the afterglow
remained, shrouding him in light. A transcendent lumi-
nescence that made her want to squint.

Beneath her feet, the floor was hard and sharp. The
entire cavern was formed of black, glassy basalt, faceted
as a gemstone. There were no torches in deference to the
godfire', there was no need for manmade light when the
Seker lent them his.

2 Jennifer Roberson

All around her columns gleamed. Slow spirals mim-
icked blown glass, delicately fluted; twisted strands, oddly
seductive, stretched from floor to ceiling. Light lost itself
in endless glassy whorls. The world ran wet with fire.

She crossed, hearing the echoes of her steps and the
chime of girdle, silver on black, nearly lost in the weight
of velvet. As always, she smetled the breath of the god.
But to her, it was not unpleasant. The promise of power
was a heady scent that set her flesh to tingling.