"Jennifer Fallon - Demon Child 01 - Medalon" - читать интересную книгу автора (Fallon Jennifer)

reported she’d been late. She met the Lord Defender’s gaze defiantly, before turning her eyes to the
pyre.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw the Lord Defender take an involuntarily step backward as the
flames seared his time-battered face. Surreptitiously, she glanced at the ranks of women and girls who
stood in a solemn circle around the pyre. Their faces were unreadable in the firelight. For the most part
they were still, their heads bowed respectfully. Occasionally, a foot shuffled on the sandy floor of the
arena.How many were genuinely grieving, she mused,and how many more had their minds on the
Quorum, and who would fill the vacancy?

R’shiel knew the political maneuvering had begun the moment Trayla had been found in her study, the
knife of her assailant still buried in her breast. Her killer was barely out of his teens. He was waiting even
now in the cells behind the Defenders’ Headquarters to be hanged. Rumor had it that he was a disciple of
the River Goddess, Maera. The Sisterhood had confiscated his family’s boat—and with it, their
livelihood—for the crime of worshipping a heathen god. He had come to the Citadel to save his family
from starvation, he claimed, to beg the First Sister for mercy.

He had killed her instead.

What had Trayla said to the boy,R’shiel wondered? What would cause him to pull a knife on the First
Sister—a daunting figure to an uneducated river-brat? Surely he must have known his plea would fall on
deaf ears? Pagan worship had been outlawed in Medalon for two centuries. The Harshini were extinct
and with them their demons and their gods.If he wanted mercy, he should have migrated south, she
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thought unsympathetically. They still believed in the heathen gods in Hythria and Fardohnya, R’shiel
knew, and the whole of Karien to the north was fanatically devoted to the worship of a single god, but in
Medalon they had progressed beyond pagan ignorance centuries ago.

A voice broke the silence. R’shiel glanced through the firelight at the old woman who spoke.

“Since our beloved Param led us to enlightenment, the Sisters of the Blade have carried on her solemn
trust to free Medalon from the chains of heathen idolatry. As First Sister, Trayla honored that trust. She
gave her life for it. Now we honor Trayla.Let us remember our Sister.”

She joined the thousands of voices repeating the ritual phrase. It was uncomfortably warm this close to
the pyre on such a balmy summer’s eve and her high-necked green tunic was damp with sweat.

“Let us remember our Sister.”

Small and wrinkled, Francil Asharen was the oldest member of the Quorum and had presided over this
ceremony twice before. She was Mistress of the Citadel, the civilian administrator of this vast
city-complex. Twice before she had refused to be nominated as First Sister and R’shiel could think of no
reason that would change her mind this time. She had no ambition beyond her current position.

Harith Nortarn, the tall, heavily built Mistress of the Sisterhood, stood beside her. R’shiel grimaced
inwardly. The woman was a harridan, and her beautifully embroidered white silk gown did nothing to