Lady Hotspur

“I was raised by the forest,” Connley said finally.

Guilt bit at her: she ought to have insisted he come to Aremoria with her, after their parents died and she had a place of her own. But he’d had Sin Errigal and all the Errigal cousins to keep him safe. She’d chosen her home.

Connley touched her wrist, so lightly she saw it more than felt it. “Don’t, sister. You were raised by a city. By libraries and warriors and a king. I wasn’t unhappy. I’m not. This is my cradle, this island.”

It was too intimate for having known each other again a mere hour. She withdrew her hand and glanced back at the ghost owl. The moment she met the bird’s gaze, the owl spread her wings and leapt off the branch: not a whisper in the wind as it skimmed over their heads, dipped up and over the cottage, and vanished.

Mora felt oddly alone.

Then: singing.

The wind pushed her hair off her ears and delivered a low, distorted song.

She knew Rowan Lear’s voice, but also that he was some miles away still.

A succession of shivers pulled down her spine and Mora finished the cup of mead.

But Connley’s face lit with unadulterated relief. “Rowan,” he said, pushing to his feet. “I’ll—I’ll meet him.”

And then Mora was truly alone with the forest, the wind, and her discomfiting uncertainty.

STARS DAZZLED IN the black sky when Mora woke.

The men had attempted to give her the narrow cottage bed, but she’d rolled her eyes and spread her blanket upon the ground outside. So thick was the grass her sleep was immediate and comfortable, much better than most camping she’d experienced as a soldier. The hot mushroom soup and honey wine in her belly helped, assuredly.

Silence—utter silence—greeted her waking. Instead of rich and peaceful, the midnight forest felt oppressive. Wrong.

Mora held her breath and kept very still, but there was nothing: no night frogs or whispering breeze, no shivering plants or crickets or concealed hunters. She could hear the beat of her heart.

On her feet fast, Mora quietly loosed the knife from her shin sheath and gripped it backward, holding it close before her like shield and weapon both. Rowan was not on his bedroll. Sneaking carefully on her toes, she went to the cottage door: it opened easily, and inside was dark. “Rowan? Connley?” she whispered. Nothing.

She felt her way to the window and unlatched the shutters: starlight filtered through, but it was scant. Mora peered at the small room. The bed was empty, that was certain, and she saw no sign of either her brother or of struggle. He and Rowan had both left her alone by their own choice.

Anger spurred her outside and down the path to the cathedral. Her knife remained in hand and she maintained her quiet movement, aware danger might still be present, though doubting it.

The cathedral shone dully against the night sky, and it was barely brighter in the meadow, without trees to block the stars. She stormed to the south to find the door open enough to walk through, so she did.

Mora stopped. Starlight fell down from the open sky—there was no roof at all, as was the case with most such cathedrals, even the one in Lionis. The dark sanctuary opened before her. Its limewashed walls had been painted with black constellations and bright flower-bursts of red, blue, yellow that she could just barely make out.

The prince and the witch were at the heart of the cathedral, where all four arms came together in a cross, with the navel well in its center. Rowan leaned his hands on the stone rim, peering down into it; his white-gold hair spilled free, falling against the well and even into it, being so very long. Across from him Connley touched the well, too, but his head was tipped back to the stars above.

One of them was speaking softly, or was it a song?

As Banna Mora stared, she heard another noise: water. A gurgle, growing louder but still only like the murmur of a slow stream.

Then Rowan leaned back. Water appeared like a black, rippling mirror of the sky, rising to the edge of the well. Mora’s lips parted in surprise. The water halted, the surface dancing calmly there, licking at the ends of Rowan’s hair and the tips of his fingers.

Connley dipped his hand into the water, and brought it, dripping, to his mouth.

“I hope this will clarify my prophecies,” Rowan murmured.

“You still argue with the stars?”

“Everyone does who converses with them—their voice is a growing babble.”

Though Mora was certain she’d made no sound, Rowan’s head snapped toward her. Connley followed his gaze.

“Banna Mora,” Rowan said tenderly. He beckoned for her. “Come taste the rootwater of Innis Lear.”

She stared at the black eye of water pressing up from the well. It pulsed, and though she’d never admit it to any but herself, she’d have sworn it was the same rhythm as her heartbeat.

“No,” she said, and backed away, eyes stuck to that water until her reaching hand found the corner of the threshold and she stepped out through the narrow opening, into the meadow again. Her heel caught on loose earth and grass scratched at her boots.

Mora breathed a gasping, deep breath, then went determinedly back to her bed.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.