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

Azhure smiled as she absorbed what StarDrifter was saying. "Then what use is suchmagnificent
power, StarDrifter, if the only time I can use it is when I am attacked by a Gryphon?"

Despite the concern evident in her words, Azhure's voice was more relaxed now and her tone lighter.

"Azhure," Axis said. "There are many reasons why you may be finding it so difficult to use your
powers. StarDrifter has perhaps discovered the main one. But also you effectively blocked out your
power for so many years that I am not surprised you find it almost impossible to call it willingly to you
now."

Azhure reflected on his words, her smile losing some of its brilliance. Over the past few nights vaguely
troubling dreams with even more troubling voices had disturbed her rest, but she could never remember
the details when she woke. Were they a manifestation of her newly freed power bubbling uncontrolled to
the surface? Perhaps she ought to talk to Axis about them -but all thoughts of dreams were forgotten with
her husband's next words.

"And," Axis continued, "our unborn children may also be causing a block."

Three days ago Axis, according to the right and duty of every Icarii father, had awoken her twin
babies. When he had done this for Caelum, calling the baby to awareness within her womb, it had been a
joyous affair, but this awakening - the whole pregnancy - had been so different. The babes had witnessed
what she and Axis had seen when he had forced

Azhure to remember her mother's death and her subsequent physical and emotional torture at Hagen's
hands. As she and Axis had endured the pain and the horror, so had her two unborn babies. Faraday
had said that she thought the babies would be affected by the experience, although she did not know
how. Now, both Azhure and Axis knew.

The awakening had been successful as the babies were now fully aware and active. But during the
awakening, and in the days since, it had become painfully obvious that the twin babes distrusted and
disliked their father. Azhure and Axis could feel their resentment every time Axis touched their mother;
even now, cuddled together on the couch, both could feel the rising hostility from the twins. It made
anything more intimate an impossibility; both Azhure's weak state and the twins' antagonism meant Axis
and Azhure had yet to consummate their marriage. Axis had tried to harm the woman who carried them
and, unlike Caelum, the twins were not prepared to forgive him. Yet even Azhure did not enjoy their
affection; she sensed total disinterest seeping into her from the babies. They existed only for each other,
their parents either untrusted or inconsequential.

Axis had not realised Azhure was pregnant for so long because he'd never felt the tug of the growing
babies' blood. Even before the trauma of four days ago, he mused, the twins had been so self-absorbed
that their SunSoar blood had not reached out beyond each other.

It made him wonder what kind of children he'd fathered.

The twins, as would be natural for children conceived of such powerful parents, would be Enchanters
in their own right - even now they demonstrated their awakening powers in the womb. Azhure sighed.
Since their awakening the twins had refused to listen to Axis on the five occasions he'd tried to teach
them.