"C. S. Friedman - Coldfire 1 - Black Sun Rising" - читать интересную книгу автора (Friedman C. S)

shivered with pleasure, watching them. Was this her forever now, this marvelous
vision? Would it stay when he was gone - his gift to her, in this unearthly night?
At last, eons later, they came to the last rise before her house. And stood on
it, silently, gazing upon the all-too-human abode. There, in the light, the music
would fade. The fae would be gone. Bright sanity, in all its dull glory, would reign
supreme.
His nostrils flared as he studied the small house, as if testing the breeze that
came from it. “They’re afraid,” he observed.
“They expected me home before dark.”
“They had good reason to fear.” He said it quietly, but she sensed the threat
behind his words. “You know that.”
She looked into his eyes and saw in them such a mixture of coldness and
power that she turned away, trembling. It was worth it, she thought. Worth it to
see the night like that. To have such vision, if only once. Then the touch of his
finger, cold against her skin, brought her back to face him.
“I won’t hurt you,” he promised. And a hint of a smile crossed his face - as if
his own benevolence amused him. “As for what you do to yourself, for having
known me . . . that’s in your own hands. Now, I think, you’d better go home.”
She stepped back, suddenly uncertain. Dazed, as the fae that had bound her
will dissolved into the night. He laughed softly, a sound that was disconcertingly
intimate; she sensed a glimmer of darkness behind it, and for a moment she
could see all too clearly what was in his eyes. Black fae, utterly lightless. A
silence that drank in all music. An unearthly chill, that hungered to consume
living heat.
She took a step backward in sudden panic, felt the wet grass bunch beneath
her feet. “Nari!”
She whirled around, toward the source of the sound. Her father’s form was
silhouetted against the glowing house, as he ran up the rise to reach her.
“Narilka! We’ve been so worried!” She wanted to run to him, greet him, to
reassure him - to beg for his help, his protection - but suddenly she had no
voice. It was as if his sudden appearance had shattered some intimate bond, and
her body still ached for the lover it had lost. “Great gods, Nari, are you all right?”
He embraced her. Wordlessly. She couldn’t have spoken. She clung to him
desperately, dimly aware of the tears that were streaming down her face. Of her
mother, running out to join them.
“Nari! Baby, are you all right? We didn’t know what to do - we were so
worried!”
“Fine,” she managed. “Fine.” She managed to disentangle herself from her
father, and to stand alone with some degree of steadiness. “It was my fault. I’m
sorry . . .”
She looked back toward where her escort had last stood, and wasn’t
surprised to find him gone. Though the grass was crushed where she had been
standing there were no such marks from beneath his feet, nor any other sign of
his passage. Again, no surprise.
“Fine,” she murmured that single word, how little of the truth it conveyed! -
and she let them lead her home across the farmland, into the negligible safety of
the light. And she mourned for the beauty that faded about her as the shadows
of night fell farther and farther behind. But that vision would be hers now,
whenever she dared to look for it. His gift.
Whoever you are, I thank you. Whatever the cost, I accept it.