"Michelle West - Winter Death" - читать интересную книгу автора (West Michelle)

your room. We'll come for you."
Kayla nodded. "Can I have—"
"What?"
"Darius. Can I have Darius with me?"
Gisel hesitated. It was a cold hesitation. "It would be...better...if you did not."

In her room—and it really was a single room—she found Daniel perched on the
edge of her bed. He started when he saw her, and leaped up from the bed's edge,
shortening the distance with his flight of steps. She caught him in her arms and
held him tightly, seeing another child in his stead.
"You need a bath," she told him gently.
He said very little, but she managed to ask for water, hot and cold, and she tended
him first. She had spent most of her life taking care of the children of Riverend,
and this one was no different.
 Or so she told herself.
:Darius,: she said, as she worked, soap adding to tangles of hair and the murk of
what had been clear water, :What was Gregori doing when Rodri died?:
:He was at the Border,: Darius replied.
It was strange, that she could speak to him from such a distance, and that it could
feel so natural. :During the skirmishing?:
:Yes.:
:Why?:
:He was a Herald.:
:That's not enough of an answer. If he was so sensitive...Gisel spoke of training.
Was he trained?:
:He had better teachers than you, if that's what you meant.:
:But he—:
:He was very, very powerful, Kayla.:
:Then why did it take so long to figure out what he was?:
:He let no one know. No one but Rodri.:
:He was in the middle of battle.:
:Yes.:
:Constantly?:
:Not...physically. But there is evidence that he was aware of it. He could sense
the movement of our enemies well before any others could. War breeds fear and
hatred.:
She pulled her son—no, this child, this stranger's son—from the bath water and
set him in the towel in her lap.
:Darius. I need the truth.:
:I have not lied to you, Bright Heart. Between us, there can be no lie.:
:Could he use his Gift as a weapon?:
Darius did not answer.
Answer enough.

She did not sleep that night. She knew that sleep, in this place, was death. Close
her eyes, and she could see the black spread of dragon wings, the lift and curl of air
beneath their span. Close her eyes, and she could hear those borne aloft by that
terrible flight; the screaming and the terror of those who had not yet realized they
were dead.
Kayla, her mother said, from the distance of years, from the safety of death,