"Huff, Tanya - Wizard 1 - Child Of The Grove 1.1 Txt" - читать интересную книгу автора (Huff Tanya)

"The Lady, " ran the awed whisper as the crowd



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parted before her. "The Lady of the Grove. " Those who had lost their ability to believe in the wondrous found it again. Those who had doubted, couldn't remember why. A young woman reached out and let a lock of the Lady's shining hair caress her fingers and then stood gazing at her hand in amazement as if it belonged to another. Peace walked with the Lady and the smell of a sun-warmed forest grove filled the air. She looked neither to the left nor the right as she approached the palace, her eyes never moved from the man on the litter or the youth standing beside him. At the steps of the dais she paused, as if gathering strength-the fragrance of the forest became stronger and a breeze danced through her hair-then she lifted her skirts in her hand and climbed the steps.
With a strangled cry, Rael threw himself into her arms. She held him to her heart for a moment, stroking his hair, and then gently pushed him away. Green eyes gazed into green.
Rael wondered how he could ever have thought of his mother as young. He saw wisdom, understanding, compassion to a degree most mortal minds could not accept, let alone achieve, resting in the depths of her eyes. She had walked with the Mother-creator at the beginning of the world. She had seen the creation of man. And she loved him. Rael felt her love wrap around him, a warmth, a protection he would always wear.
Milthra saw that her son would make a fine king. His heart sang with courage and pride and his eyes were filled with hope. He might stumble and fall, but he would try and no mother could ask more. She had no regrets.
The people in the Square saw only the Lady of the Grove and the young man she claimed as her son, but it was enough. The unworldliness of their future king turned from a thing to be feared to one to be treasured. Not one of them realized what Milthra had done in leaving the Grove.

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"Mother, " Rael's voice grew heavy with a new anguish, "you've left your tree. "
"I have left my tree. " She touched his cheek softly. "How could I live when my love died? My sisters sleep and someday a child of your children's children will wake them, but my day is done. " She kissed him and turned to the king. Raen looked up at her with such a mixture of longing and pain that those in the crowd who saw it, wept. "Why have you come?" he cried. "You would not come to me, beloved, so I have come to you. " "Then you will die. "
"Yes. But what is my life without you?" She tried a smile, but it faltered and the brilliant green of her eyes dimmed for an instant as they filled and overflowed. Her hands were caught in his, fingers too tightly woven to be parted, so she let the tears drop where they would.
They fell almost slowly, taking form and beauty in the air, and then lay shimmering like jewels on his breast. Instead of drying in the sunlight, they caught it, bound it, and gave it back. Their light grew and grew until everyone save Raen and Milthra covered their eyes. Even Rael stepped back and shielded himself from the glory.
When eyes could see again, an old and dying king no longer lay on the dais. In his place was a young man with hair of jet and smooth golden skin over corded muscle.
"The king, " sighed the crowd. "His youth has returned " Rael's eyes widened, joy beginning to surface, but
Milthra shook her head.
"It is an appearance only, my child, " she said. "Death is the true son of the Mother and not even I can stop him. " And then she looked beyond Rael, to the young man who stood in his shadow. The young man that only she, of all the hundreds in the Square, could see.

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Under the weight of her regard, Lord Death bowed his head and when he raised it again said softly: "I would spare you both if my nature allowed it, Eldest. "
Raen looked down at his body and raised his hands to his face.
"It's true!" His voice throbbed with passion. "I'm a man again. I am as I was in my prime!" He held out his arms and Milthra lay down beside him, her head pillowed on his chest.
"As you always were to me, beloved, and as you always will be now. "
He kissed her once, softly, and then together they died.
The silence was so complete, the crowd so quiet and still, that the sunlight bathing the bodies in golden luminescence could almost be heard. From the distance, from the forest, came the sound of thunder.
Belkar stepped forward and three times opened his mouth to speak. Finally, his voice got past his grief and filled the Square.
"The king is dead!"
And then he dropped on one knee before the tall young man with eyes the green of new spring leaves.
"Long live the king!"
Rael buried his mother and father in the Sacred Grove under the remains of his mother's tree. It had been hit by lightning and then consumed by fire until only a charred stump remained. Not one of the other trees, or even so much as a blade of grass, had been touched.
"This stump shall be your headstone, " he said softly, patting the last bit of earth into place. "And I will see that none disturb your rest. "
"I won't cry for them, " he had told Belkar, "for they're together at last and even in death that is no cause for grief. "
As the young king left the Grove, he thought he

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heard women's voices, lamenting, soft with sorrow, hut when he turned, he saw only the wmd moving through the circle of trees and leaves falling to cover the grave.

Interlude One
Rael joined with the Duke of Belkar's blue-eyed daughter and their years together were filled with love and laughter and children. He never found the common touch that had so endeared his father to the people, but he ruled well and was always after remembered as just.
For all the years of Rael's reign, Doan, the Captain of the Elite, stood by his side. His unaging presence became a part of the king: two arms, two legs, and the captain. And when he buried his sword in Rael's grave and vanished from mortal lands, that too was accepted with no surprise. It could not be imagined he would serve another.
The death of the Eldest became the subject of a thousand songs and in her honor, or perhaps to save her sisters from a like fate, Rael, as his first act as Lord of Ardhan, forbid all mortals entry to the Grove, swearing those who knew its direction to oaths of secrecy. Over forty years later, when his son took the throne, time had erased the reality of both the Lady and the circle of silver birch and left only the songs.
The dwarf stepped back from the sapling and nodded once. "Just like you said. "
The great black centaur that stood beside him returned the nod, although both kept their eyes on the tiny tree. Around them, the Sacred Grove was silent
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