"Sara Douglass - Redemption 1 - Sinner" - читать интересную книгу автора (Douglass Sara)

hug, wondering why. Even as a child Zenith had seemed troubled. She had often
slept badly, suffering formless nightmares, and on many days was withdrawn
and uncommunicative. And sometimes… sometimes Caelum had caught her
looking at him with an expression that was so unlike her that he'd wondered if…
"Why the frown?" Zenith leaned back and took her brother's face briefly in
her hands, kissing him lightly on the lips.
Caelum folded her wings against her back and stroked them softly. "I was
thinking, loveliest of sisters, that it is high time you also thought about fleeing -"
Why had he used that word? Caelum stumbled slightly, but managed to carry
on before Zenith could speak. "- leaving Sigholt. How many years since you left?
No, don't answer! Too many, that I know."
Zenith quietened in that strange way she had, and Caelum sensed a slight
withdrawal.
He stood back a little, but kept his hand lightly on her shoulders. "Zenith?
StarDrifter would love to see you, I'm sure. You spent a great deal of time with
him when you were a child, and the Island of Mist and Memory is a wondrous
place."
"Maybe." She suddenly grinned, her dark blue eyes mischievous. "Should I
take Drago with me, as I did when a child?" Zenith more than half suspected
that Caelum's suggestion was a roundabout way of ridding Sigholt of Drago's
presence for a while.
Caelum dropped his hands and walked away from her. "As you wish," he
said, his voice toneless. "But that wasn't what I meant."
Zenith instantly regretted trying to joke about Drago. He was a constant note
of disharmony within Sigholt, although he never said or did anything that could
be in any way construed as sinister or hurtful. It was just that he was so
different from his brothers and sisters. Caelum, RiverStar and Zenith (as also
Isfrael, their half-brother) were the children of gods. They were highly magical
beings, and their enchanted lives would likely stretch into infinity before they
ended. Once Drago had been like them. Briefly. Drago had been born the second
child of Axis and Azhure, the elder twin of RiverStar, and potentially one of the
most powerful Enchanters ever birthed. But even as a mewling infant he had
abused that power, allying himself with his father's foe, Gorgrael, and plotting to
murder Caelum so that Drago might inherit his place.
As punishment Azhure had disinherited him of his Icarü powers. Now, forty
years on, Drago wandered the corridors of Sigholt a dark and enigmatic mortal,
ageing into useless thin-faced middle years as he watched his brothers and
sisters glory in their youth and enchanted powers.
Caelum was never able to trust him, even knowing his powers had gone. It
was Caelum who had been the object of Drago's infant ambitions, who had been
subject to the terror of kidnap and abuse by Gorgrael, and it was Caelum who
was daily reminded of that horror every time he caught sight of Drago from the
corner of his eyes. Zenith knew that Caelum made every effort to avoid Drago
whenever he could, but even in a place as large as Sigholt the brothers
constantly ran into each other.
"I'm sorry," she said softly to Caelum's back. "I did not mean to jest."
He turned his head her way, and smiled slightly. "It does not matter, Zenith.
Drago does not -"
There was a knock at the door, and it opened without waiting for Caelum's
word. WingRidge CurlClaw entered, stopped after precisely five paces, and