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

"Yes, but so was everyone else who'd had dinner with him the night before. We assumed it was bad lobster." Arlis shook his head. "Goddess, if we'd only known—" He broke off abruptly.

Rohannon understood. As Rohan's one-time squire, Arlis' loyalties did not lie at Goddess Keep. But with Saumer turning out to have the gift ... it was the same decision his own parents had thus far avoided: whether or not to send Rohannon and Chayla to Andry for training.

"Well, it's done," Arlis said. "Or perhaps I ought to say it wasn't done."

"If he wants, he can be taught the way Sioned taught my grandmother Tobin."

"I can't see Saumer returning to the schoolroom," Arlis pointed out wryly. "Anybody's schoolroom, not even Sioned's. Have you thought what you'll do when it comes to it?"

Rohannon shrugged. "I'm not sure. I can learn it all from my parents—and Sioned, of course—but there's a lot about being a Sunrunner that they say can only be taught at Goddess Keep. I—" Rohannon—

Father? He was wrapped in light and gentleness and familiar colors.

Goddess blessing to you, my dear son. I'm glad to find you safe.

Why wouldn't I be? Father, what's wrong? There is no easy way to tell this. Rohannon, there's been hard battle here. Stronghold is empty and burning. Don't worry about your mother and sister—they're on their way to Feruche with your grandmother. And you? You're not hurt? A few scratches. But Rohan . . . Rohan is dead. "No!"

His scream shattered the weaving. Arlis threw an arm around his shoulders to hold him upright, calling his

name. It was so cold. The wind cut through him and iced his bones.

Rohannon! Maarken steadied him. Don't ever do that again!

Father—no, it's not true—

I wish almost anything else were true but this. I can't stay, my son. Tell Arlis, and—and do honor to your kinsman. You were Named for him, and he loved you well. Remember that.

*

At Summer River in Grib, Prince Velden said to his court Sunrunner, "We shall do all that is proper, naturally. But without ostentation."

"Meaning, my lord?"

"What do you think it means?" he snapped. "The enemy is camped not ten measures away. Thus far, they've let us alone. If they see a display of fuss and bother they'll wonder why—and undoubtedly find out. What would it do to their spirits to learn that the High Prince is dead and they've won a great victory in the Desert? How long would it be before they decide to match that victory here?"

"I hadn't thought of it that way, my lord."

Of course you hadn't. You don't think at all unless Andry tells you how. I never liked Andrade, but at least she sent me Sunrunners who knew how to use their brains.

Aloud, he said, "We will observe the ritual with all respect and honor, but quietly."

The Sunrunner departed. Velden frowned, reminded that in Andrade's day faradh'im had bowed to princes, a small point but a telling one. Things had changed since the days of his youth, and not for the better.

He shrugged off his annoyance and wished he could also shrug off his only son and heir, who limped into the oratory gripping his cane as if it were a sword. Elsen's right leg had been shattered in a childhood accident; he had never been sent away to be fostered as a squire or even been more than a few measures from Summer

River, for if walking was uncomfortable, riding was an agony. A lifetime of intermittent pain showed in Elsen's face, in the constant tension of his thin mouth and the strain around his eyes.

Velden was well aware that the last thing under the Goddess' sunshine Elsen wanted to do was become a ruling prince. He had hoped that his daughter Norian would marry a man worthy of being named heir, but she had thrown herself away on that nothing Edrel of River Ussh. So Elsen, not his sister, would rule Grib one day. At least he'd had sense enough to wed a woman who not only adored him in spite of his handicap, but who knew what was what when it came to ruling. Selante was Cabar of Gilad's daughter and had more between her ears than the scribblings from musty old books that filled Elsen's head.