"Michelle West - Winter Death" - читать интересную книгу автора (West Michelle)

And she did, although she did not know how. Death bells. "Tell me?"
He shook his head. :It is forbidden for me to tell you what they are; you will
know. We will reach the capital in the next two days.:
As he spoke, the hairs on the back of her neck rose. She thought of Riverend. Of
Tessa and Evan, of Mitchell, of the Widow Davis. For no reason at all, she wanted
to weep.

The first large town that Kayla entered seemed so vast she assumed it was the
capital. Darius laughed, but his laughter was gentle enough that it reminded her of
her father's amusement at her younglings antics a lifetime ago.
"But it's soтАФsoтАФbig!"
:It is big, yes. But... it is not a city. The town is large. That building, there? That
houses the mayor and his family. And that, that is as close to a cathedral as you
will find. But this is a tenth, a twentieth, of the size of the city you will enter when
weтАФKayla?:
She sat frozen across his bare back, her legs locked so tightly her body was
shuddering.
:Kayla!:
She could not even shake her head. Her mouth, when it opened, was too dry to
form words. Darius...
:Kayla, what is wrong?:
The screaming. Can't you hear it? The screaming.
:Kayla! KAYLA!:

She was on her feet. Not his back, not his feet. She could not remember sliding
from the complicated bits and pieces of baubles that announced his presence and
his station so eloquently.
The cobbled streets passed beneath her; she noticed them only because they felt
so strange to her feet, so unnatural beneath open sky. The screaming was so loud
she could hear no other words, although she thought she could glimpse, from the
corners of her eyes, the opened mouths and shocked faces of the strangers she
hurtled past, pushed through.
She was through the doors and into the light before she realized that she had
entered the cathedral; that she stood in the slanting rays of colors such as she had
never seen captured in glass. A man, ghostly and regal, illuminated her and the
ground upon which she stood.
She stopped only a moment because given a choice between beauty and terror,
beauty could not hold her. She knew what she heard. She knew it.
The cathedral was an open, empty place of light and space, with benches and an
altar at the end of the apse. She ran down it, boots pounding the ground, footsteps
echoing in heights she would never have dreamed possible in Riverend. And she
forgot to feel small, to feel humble; she knew she had to read the person whose
screams were so terrible, and soon, or it would be too late.
And she never once stopped to wonder what too late meant.
She found him.
It wasn't easy; there were doors secreted in the vast stone walls, beautifully oiled
and tended, that nonetheless seemed like prison doors, they opened into a room so
small. Curled against wall and floor, huddling in the corner, was a man. A stranger.
In Riverend, strangers were always eyed with suspicion, greeted with hearty
hospitality and an implacable distance. She had shed both of those the moment she