"Rawn, Melanie - Dragon Star 2 - Dragon Token" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dragon Stories)

"Control your temper, Arnisaya," her husband

advised.

"When will you start behaving like a man instead of a gelding?" she hissed. "My brother Segelin and his family are dead at Seahold—unavenged! The enemy sails Broch-well Bay as if it were their private lake. Half the Desert is lost, most of Gilad, much of Syr—and all you can do is worry which tunic to wear!"

He considered them again. "Is your own gown in order? Is it the correct shade of gray? We don't wish it said we lack respect for the late High Prince."

Arnisaya nearly shrieked in her frustration and fury. "What does it take to shame you into—"

"Into a fight that has nothing to do with me?" He picked through the jewels in a small coffer, holding various rings and earrings up to the sunlight. "You heard my father's judgment. There is nothing in any treaty that compels us to defend anyone against an invader unknown to us. If one of the other princedoms had attacked Syr or Dorval or the Desert, then honor would have—"

"Honor! A squiggle of ink on parchment to you, a sound you learned to make but not understand!"

"—dictated that we come to the aid of the wronged princedom," he continued as if she hadn't spoken. "We are under no obligation to anyone." "My brother is dead!"

"Yes. And it's a good thing he paid the final installment on your dowry at the Rialla this year."

This time she aimed a silver wine cup right at his head. He brushed it away as if it were an annoying insect.

"Understand something, Arnisaya," he said quietly and in his taut, long-nosed face was a cold warning. "My father chose me to rule after him, even though my brother Camanto is the elder. And after me will come our son Lenig. This war is nothing we need concern ourselves with. Nothing is going to interfere with the order of things in Fessenden—not war, not alliance, not anything." He paused long enough to settle on an unusual dark moonstone earring to complete his ensemble. "But I would remind you, wife, that the succession is now assured."

She sucked in a breath and her high color paled. "You wouldn't dare."

"No? As you've pointed out, Segelin is dead. There is no one to side with you, should I decide on divorce— which you make more attractive with every one of your tantrums. I'm beginning to wonder why I Chose a hawk, when a sparrow would have suited me just as well."

Arnisaya fled the room before she grabbed something really fatal and killed him with it. In the chill marble hallways of Fessada she slammed blindly into someone whose arms caught her fast.

"Let go of me, damn you!"

"Peace, dear sister." Camanto steadied her, in no hurry to loosen his embrace. "You're quite astonishing when you're furious, you know. Pity my brother doesn't have eyes to see it."

"Damn him!" She raked her tumbled hair back from her face. "He's a coward and a fool! No wonder your father wants him to be the next Prince of Fessenden— they're exactly alike!"

"So you've discovered that, have you?" He grinned, looking like a lean, blond wolf.

"What can he hope to gain by staying neutral? Pol will chew him up and spit him out—and I don't like to think what the Vellant'im will do."

"On the contrary," Camanto said, leading her to an antechamber where they could be private. "My esteemed father has firm legal basis for his actions—"

"For the lack of them!" she hissed.

"Granted. But Pol is as stupid about adhering to the law as Rohan ever was. As for the Vellant'im—" He shrugged. "They want the Desert. Now they have most of it. My father will make some sort of arrangement."

"You're as craven as he is! You're worse than Edirne!"

"Oh, no." Camanto laughed and tilted her face up with one finger beneath her chin. His brown eyes were bright and bitter. "No, sweet sister. I have neither my father's cowardice nor my brother's icy blood. I have . . . intentions."

"What kind?" she asked warily.