"Huff, Tanya - Fire's Stone V1.1 Txt" - читать интересную книгу автора (Huff Tanya)

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Tanya Huff

fingers absently through Fadi's hair as the boy knelt to lace them.

Out in the garden, the scream that had wakened him sounded once more.

"What the One was that?"

"Peacocks, Highness," Oham told him placidly, deftly replacing the goblet with a piece of bread. "The Most Blessed Yasimina received them as a gift and loosed them in the gardens this morning."

"Pea what?"

"Cocks, Highness."

"That's what I thought you said." He took a bite of the bread, thickly spread with chopped dates in honey, and headed for the balcony. "What the One is a peacock?"

"A bird, Highness."

"Right." Throwing back the shutters, Darvish stepped outside and squinted down into the garden just in time to see a large blue bird trailing a tail even larger disappear behind a bush. Of all the changes that had occurred since his eldest brother had married the Princess Yasimina, this looked to be the noisiest.

"Peacocks," Darvish repeated to himself. "I suppose she always had peacocks back home in Ytaili. I suppose her-brother-the-kmg had a hundred or so roaming about his garden." He rubbed at his temples as a high-pitched shriek bounced jagged edges off the inside of his skull. "I suppose I'm not permitted to shoot them," he sighed.

"No, Highness."

"Perhaps the city won't agree with them and we can ship them off to Ramdan. ..." No fair that his second brother should miss all the fun just because he'd run from court to raise his family.

"They were sent to lift the Most Blessed Yasimina's homesickness, Highness."

"Well," Darvish aimed an imaginary crossbow at a scuttling bird, "if they get her to stop wailing they can scream under my window all they like." Her homesickness had driven half the court to distraction, none more so than her husband. It amazed Darvish that the crown prince had developed such strong feelings for a bride he'd known barely a year and had wed only to prevent a war. Strong enough feelings to allow this intrusion into the previously restful gardens.

THE FIRE'S STONE

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I'll bet you asked Shahin, Father. Didn't just tell him he was to be married. I'd have wed gladly if you'd only asked. Not that his wedding would carry the weight that Shahin's had. His brother had married a Princess of Ytaili, wiping out centuries of conflict between the two countries. He would marry a child with no political importance at all.
He squinted up at the sun burning yellow-white in a cloudless sky, mid-afternoon by the angle. More or less his usual time for rising. Leaning on the balcony railing, his eyes half closed against the light, he finished the bread.
"I had the strangest dream last night, Oham. I dreamed a thief fell into my room. A quite attractive ..." His palm, caressing the iron rail, found a mark that shouldn't exist, cutting off both the motion and the words.
"It was no dream, Highness. The guards found this thief you speak of staggering about the halls near dawn."
"So he's real." The prince ran a finger up and down the scar his sword had left and grinned, remembering how his dream had almost ended. "Where is he now?"
"Their Royal Highnesses have him in the Chamber of the Fourth, Highness." Oham's hand rose in the sign of the Nine and One.
"What!" Darvish whirled about to face the dresser who regarded him placidly.
"It is, Highness, where thieves and such are taken."
"Not this thief, by the Nine." In memory, pale eyes devoured his face once more. His heart began to pound painfully in his chest and fury burned the morning's wine away. "This thief's mine! Not theirs, mine!" He had always found the twins' diversions repellent, but the thought of them taking pleasure from the pain of something he considered his own drew his lips back off his teeth and curved his hands into fists.
Fadi scrambled out of the way as Darvish stormed by and then looked wide-eyed to the older dresser for guidance. Oham merely shrugged. What happened outside the prince's suite was not his concern. Inside, he did what he could.
Somewhere out of sight, the peacock screamed again.
As the guards snapped to attention and the heavy door swung open, a ripple of anticipation moved through the crowd of courtiers waiting in the long gallery outside the royal apartments. Fans were set aside, silks were patted
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