"Sara Douglass - The Axis Trilogy 3 - StarMan" - читать интересную книгу автора (Douglass Sara)

The moment Jayme turned and saw her his mouth went dry. He had never expected to be confronted
by the woman he thought he and Moryson had murdered so many years previously.

For long minutes Rivkah just stood and stared at him. Jayme could not but help contrast her proud
bearing with his own hunched and subservient posture. How is it, he thought, that the woman who did
Achar and Artor so much wrong can stand there as if justice was on her side? How is it that she can
stand there so beautiful and queenly when all Moryson and I deposited at the foot of the Icescarp Alps
was a broken woman near death?Artor, why did you let her survive? Artor? Artor? Are you there?

"Why?" she eventually asked.

Surprising himself, Jayme actually replied in a moderately strong voice. "For the wrong that you did
your husband and your country and your god, Rivkah. You did not deserve to live."

"I was the one wronged, Jayme," she said. "Yet you would that I had died a horrible death. You did
not have the courage, as I remember, to put a knife through my throat."

"It was Moryson's idea," Jayme said. "He thought it best that you die in a place far enough removed
from civilisation that your bones would not corrupt Artor-fearing souls."

"Yet you let my son live."

"He was innocent of your evil - at least, that's what I thought at the time. I did not know then what it
was that had put him in your belly. Knowing what I know now Iwould have put a knife to your throat,
Rivkah. Well before you had a chance to give that abomination birth."

Rivkah's hands jerked slightly, the only sign she had been disturbed by Jayme's words. At that
moment she longed to flee, so great was her loathing for him, but she had one more thing to ask.

"Why did you name my son Axis?"

Jayme blinked at her, surprised by the question, and fought to remember. He shrugged slightly.

"Moryson named him."

"But whyAxis')"

"I do not know, Rivkah. It seemed a good enough name at the time. I could not have known then that
he would prove to be the axis about which our entire world would turn and die."

Rivkah took a deep breath. "You denied me my son and warped his soul for almost thirty years,
Jayme, while you left me to die a slow, lingering death." She stepped forward, and spat in Jayme's face.
"They say that forgiveness is the beginning of healing, Jayme, but I find it impossible to forgive the wrong
you have done myself, my son and his father."

She turned and strode to the door.
 Just as she reached it Jayme spoke. Where the words came from he did not know, for the knowledge
behind them and their sudden ferocity were not his.

"It is my understanding that the birdman you betrayed Searlas for has now betrayed and rejected you,