"Anne Bishop - Black Jewels 00 - The Invisible Ring" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bishop Anne)

to the salt mines now, the least we can do is bring a little of the salt
mines to you."
The other guard grinned as he opened a large sack and poured coarse-grained
salt into the half barrel of water. Using Craft, he raised the half barrel
and guided it across the room. Jared closed his eyes as the half barrel
floated toward him. He ignored his quivering body. He would make a brutal
dive down into the abyss until he reached the full strength of his Red
Jewels. He would gather every drop of strength he had. And as he dove, he
would place a Red circle around the building to form a psychic boundary.
Then he would unleash all the power he had gathered. That Red strength would
hit that boundary and turn back on itself. Even if someone survived the
initial unleashing of that much dark power in a small space, the backlash
would finish the destruction. They would all die- and so would he, because
he wasn't going to hold back any of that Red strength to shield himself.
I'm sorry, Mother. I'm sorry.
He dove into the abyss.
The wild stranger rose to meet him, smashed into him, stopping his descent.
Damn you, LET ME DIE! Jared screamed as he tried to slip past the part of
himself that had become his enemy and reach his Red strength. Let me- The
half barrel of salty, frigid water flooded over him. Jared's muscles locked
around his lungs. The open lash wounds burned. He couldn't think, couldn't
breathe. With a scream of rage, the wild stranger dove back into the abyss,
going so deep he could no longer feel it, could no longer find it. Sagging,
Jared felt the pull in his shoulders as his arms took his weight. The plan
he'd had a moment ago to destroy himself became less than a memory. The past
nine years of slavery pressed down on him until he thought his shaking body
would snap under the weight. He wasn't broken. His psychic power was still
there, but, somehow, the wild stranger had taken away the will to use it.
I'm a Shalador Warlord. I am Blood.
The words sounded pathetic and empty now.
The guard removed the gag, pulling out strands of Jared's dark hair that had
gotten caught in the buckles. Jared absorbed the new pain, idly wondering if
a soul could bleed to death, if that's why he felt so weak and hollow. He
was dimly aware of the guards untying him, half dragging him into the next
room, then cuffing him to another set of iron posts. The steward appeared in
front of him and said something that sounded sharp, but the words were murky
smears, and he couldn't hold on to them long enough to understand them.
Someone removed the wide leather collar.
His chin sank to his chest.
His mind drifted until fingers gently lifted his chin and he found himself
captured by hard gray eyes. They looked into him as if his inner barriers
were completely crumbled, and there was nothing he could call his own-no
thought, no feeling she couldn't examine and discard as a worthless trinket.
He cringed as memories of his family kept trying to surface. He didn't want
her to have his memories of his younger brothers, his aunts and uncles, his
cousins, his father. His mother. No, he didn't want her to have his memories
of Reyna, especially not the last memory of her standing there, bleeding
from heart-wounds his brutal words had caused. The gray eyes still held his,
but the fingers drifted down his shivering body, brushed over the hair at
his groin, gently circled him like a different kind of Ring, and finally