"Kristine Kathryn Rusch - The Fey 02 - The Rival" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rusch Kristine Kathryn)

her chin before she put on the dress. She would go to her brother's
Coming-of-Age cermony looking as regal as she could.

No witch's wart to remind them she was different.

She would be beautiful for the first time in her life.

She stood and, holding her hand out in front of her, crossed to the window.
The stone floor was cool beneath her bare feet. She glanced once at the
slippers resting beside the bed. Shoes were the most uncomfortable
contraptions ever invented. Her feet 12
weren't meant to be bound. But
they would have to be soon. A Coming-of-Age ceremony, as her father kept
reminding her, was an Important Event. She would have to wear the shoes he
had ordered to go with her dress.

The window was large. It ended near the ceiling and stopped about
waist-high. Solanda had had it built especially, with long hinged glass
panes that opened over the garden. She believed that air was important to
well-being a Fey thing that Arianna's father reluctantly agreed with. A
tapestry depicting the coronation of Constantine the First was tied back.
Arianna hadn't looked at it in weeks, disliking the square poorly stitched
faces and the symbols of Rocaardsm that dotted the tapestry.

Rocaardsm, the state religion, was tied to her father's family. Her father
was a direct descendant of the Roca, God's first representative on the Isle.
Rocaanism was also deadly to her mother's people, the Fey. Some believed
that the union of the Fey and the Roca's descendent polluted the blood, and
resulted in Arianna's brother, Sebastian. Many believed that Sebastian was
stupid. He wasn't stupid, but he was slow. Rapid movement and rapid thought
seemed impossible for him.

She sat on the piled cushions of the window seat and tilted her hand toward
the sun. Then she frowned. A stain discolored the skin over the cut. It
looked as if she had spilled Solanda's root tea on her hand.

Everyone would know that Arianna was covering up the blemish instead of
having found some way to spell it away.

She clenched her fist and felt the skin pull. The cream dried hard.

Her skin would have felt like caked mud by the end of the evening.

She would have to go to the ceremony, witch's wart and all.

Then the hair rose on the back of her neck. Someone was watching her.

She didn't move, but pretended to study her hand. The birds had stopped
singing. The scent of roses was overpowering, like it was when the gardener
was working with the flowers.