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.She had carried her son.She had carried him for three hours, in the cold, while her toddler wailed.:Mother?:She could not answer him; could not lie to him.Instead she continued to strokehis hair.And after a moment, she sang, her voice a little too dry, a little too shaky.Songhad been her gift.She had never found a person in Riverend who would not listento her song, not be gentled by it.:I wanted to help them.I wanted to help.I couldn't wield a sword.I tried.I triedfor so long.I cut my legs, my arms; I cut Rodri's flank.I couldn't do it.And Icouldn't pull the bow.I could wind a crossbow.I :His hair.She saw images of a child, thin and awkward, and she knew what that childrepresented.The Prince.Gregori.She saw the ghostly image of a mother, a spectercomposed of a child's loss, a child's longing; she saw the gray, distant ice of afather's disappointment and contempt.She felt his isolation and his loneliness soclearly she could not separate it from her own.Nor did she try.:Rodri loved me.:Rodri found me when I was lost.He called me, and I came.:They gave me Whites.They tried to train me.We were happy here.:She felt his terror building, and she knew the storm would return.But she hadlived life in Riverend, and she had wintered there.There was no storm that shecould not weather, not now.:I could tell where the enemy was.I could tell them by what they were feeling.I:They had not made a weapon of the boy.She saw that; he had made a weapon ofhimself.She saw her mother.She saw an assassin.She knew, then, when her mother had killed, and why: tosave this boy.He had begged her to teach him this Gift, and her mother had fled, taking herlove yes, even her mother with her to the farthest reaches of the Kingdom'sborder.That desertion had hurt him; she could feel the pain clearly.But she could alsofeel the determination that followed as he dismissed Magda Merton for a selfish,powermongering woman, like all the other women in court.In silence, she let his story unfold.It was not neatly told; it was broken by stormand rage, by fear, by self-loathing.He had taught himself.He had used his power, his full power, for the first time; ithad been a surprise.A Gift.A thing to give his father, a way to prove to his friendsthat he, too, could help save the Kingdom from invasion.He had turned his Giftoutward, reflecting emotion, magnifying it.It worked.It struck the enemy,scattering them, breaking their lines.But the bond between Companion and Herald was strong; the creature mostaffected by the sudden outward blow was Rodri.Would have to be Rodri.Gregori screamed.He screamed, not with his Gift, but with his voice.And she,seeing her own graveyard, and knowing what lay beneath the earth, screamed withhim.And then, soundless, he turned, dragon wings wide.He listened for the sound ofsinging, for the songs of joy or hope or love that he had heard for almost all ofKayla's life.She knew: It was her song.And what he found was her pain, her despair, her endless rage at fate and winterand people who still had children to love.She continued to stroke his hair.Darius woke her.She rose at the sound of her name, and found that she could see the room clearly;the storm had passed for the moment.She turned to look at the man who lay in thebed; saw that his eyes were closed.His lashes were long, like boys' lashes so oftenare; his skin was winter-pale.On impulse, she bent and kissed his forehead."He isn't doing it on purpose," she said quietly, her arm around Darius' neck.Darius said nothing."The King had little patience for him, and no affection.":He loves his children.:"Gregori felt what the King felt, Darius.He wasn't just guessing.":He felt part of it; some people remember best the things which wound them.:She thought of her children.After a moment, she said, "He would have killedhimself.":Why didn't he?:"I don't know." But she was beginning to.She said, instead, "You lied to me.Hedid kill Rodri.":He did not.The enemy shot Rodri.:"Rodri was mad with terror and fear, and it was Gregori's."Darius said nothing.Kayla let her arm slide away from his shoulder."I have to speak with Gisel," shesaid softly.Just that.Gisel was waiting for her, tense and pale.She looked old, Kayla thought, bentwith Gregori's weight.But she smiled a moment when she saw Kayla enter theroom.And looked surprised."He can't stop," Kayla told her."You don't believe in idle chatter, do you?""I'm from the Holds," Kayla replied tartly."But you survived him.You.touched him, and you survived."Kayla nodded."I know why Darius waited," she told the King's Own."And Iknow that what you thought he waited for can't happen.Not here.""You can't reach him?""I can.But " She shook her head.Stared at her hands for a moment."But?""Not here."Gisel rose, mistaking her meaning."Not in the capital," Kayla told her gently, almost as if she were speaking to achild."What do you mean?""Let me take him home.""This is his home."Kayla rose.Rose and walked to a window whose splendor she had never seen inRiverend.Light broke upon the river that ran through the city; the river was murkyand slow.She thought it must be warm, as warm as the air in this almost endlessspring.Without turning, she said, "I have to take him to Riverend.""You can't [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]