"Rebecca Neason - 13th Scroll 02 - The Truest Power" - читать интересную книгу автора (Neason Rebecca)

But now, like her Sight, this had changed. Now she could control the thoughts she let
touch her—and with that control, she no longer had to fear the presence of people in her
life. It was a gift that promised her a freedom she thought she had lost ten years ago,
when she lost all the other pieces of the life she had always known.
Just as her mind was shielded from unwelcome contact, Renan’s was open to her. His
thoughts and feelings ran along the current of their deep and mutual feelings for each
other, so that Lysandra could feel the inner essence of the man sitting by her side.
At the moment he was confused—and a little discouraged. As he sat there quietly in
the sunlight, neither of them said a word for a long moment. Then, finally, she felt him
beginning to relax.
Lysandra turned toward him. “Selia?” she said, asking a number of questions with that
single word.
“Selia,” Renan replied, answering them all.
During the last three weeks, as they rested from their long journey past and for the
task ahead, Selia had withdrawn more and more into herself. Lysandra, knowing the
shock of losing the life one thought to have, had at first given the younger woman
supportive silence in which to make her adjustments of mind and heart. But that luxury
was past. June was now upon them, and the summer months of dry weather meant the
Barons would be on the move.
It was time they were moving as well—back to Ballinrigh. Both she and Renan felt a
deep certainty that whatever was next on Selia’s path to the throne could only be
accomplished in the kingdom’s capital city.
At least this time we know where we’re going, Lysandra thought as she stood.
Someone needed to point that out— again—to Selia... and Lysandra knew that this time it
had to be her.
Renan, kind and solicitous, was a great one to offer comfort. With him, Lysandra did
not hesitate to share her worries and fears. But comfort was no longer what Selia needed.
She needed to put aside both sentiment and personal choices, and look ahead with a clear,
determined eye. There was too much at stake for any of them to let personal preferences
interfere with what had to be done. Selia had shown her strength in the Realm of the Cryf,
when dealing with Aurya and Giraldus— it was time she did so again. Lysandra only
hoped she could emulate the gentle firmness her own mother had so often used with her.
The memory of her mother came easily now. The long years in which her heart was
dead and cold, buried beneath the crushing weight of her sorrow, were over. Grief was
healed, as was the guilt that she had unwittingly carried for so long—guilt that she should
still live while those she had loved died trying to save her.
The healing had come from many places, had worn many faces—three of whom were
with her now. There was Cloud-Dancer, first and always. From the day he had come into
her life, an abandoned six-week-old wolf pup with a broken leg, his joyous devotion and
loyalty had begun to chip away the hard shell in which she had encased her inner self.
Guard, companion, friend—he had been the first and only being she loved in a long, long
time.
Then Renan came into her life—or she into his. Although, at first, she had hated the
compulsion that drove her to leave this cottage, that led her first to Ballinrigh and then to
Rathreagh to find Sena, she knew now it had been a gift from the Divine Hand. In
Ballinrigh she had met Renan— Father Renan, priest of the little parish in which she had
sought refuge only minutes after entering the city.
Viewed in hindsight, the events of that long trek to the kingdom’s great capital, and of
the even longer one that followed, were nothing short of miraculous. True, she had her
Sight to guide her and Cloud-Dancer’s presence to keep her safe. But she was still a blind